Performance Comparison of Laboratory-Produced Short-Term Aged Mixtures with Plant-Produced Mixtures

Abstract

Short-term oven aging (STOA) is used in current practice to simulate typical aging of asphalt mixtures during plant production and field construction. This study compares the volumetrics and performance of laboratory-produced asphalt mixtures and corresponding plant-produced mixtures to examine whether STOA simulates plant short-term aging. Eight plant-produced mixtures with varying levels of binder performance grade, binder content, filler content, and traffic design levels were tested for rutting and cracking resistance using Hamburg wheel-tracking (HWT) and semicircular bending (SCB) tests, respectively. The eight mixtures were duplicated in the laboratory and subjected to 2 h of reheating and 2 h of oven aging before testing. The eight lab-produced mixtures had comparable volumetric properties to the plant-produced mixtures, and the performance results showed a relatively high level of equality between plant- and lab-produced mixtures even when the properties of their extracted and recovered binders at high and intermediate temperatures are found to be significantly different. Based on the findings of this study, the use of the outlined STOA procedure is considered sufficient to represent standard plant production aging.