Ground Tire Rubber Modification for Improved Asphalt Storage Stability

Abstract

Approximately 27 million waste tires per year are placed in landfills, dumps, and stockpiles. This lack of appropriate end-of-life management creates health and environmental concerns. Scrap tires can be reused for fuel, agriculture, and civil engineering applications, such as a modifier for bitumen. Blending ground tire rubber (GTR) in bitumen not only solves an environmental issue by recycling tires, but their use can also result in better performing pavements. Asphalt rubber has improved rutting resistance, thermal and reflective crack resistance, and resistance to fatigue cracking. However, one main challenge to using GTR is a stability issue caused by density disparity between GTR and the base bitumen. This can cause problems during transportation and laying of pavement. The separation of GTR and bitumen can be reduced by the extrusion of a polymer additive with GTR before blending.

Physical Properties and Storage Stability of Buton Rock Asphalt Modified Asphalt

“…Transportation is a non-negligible process for storage stability and the aging of modified asphalt [ 32 , 33 ]. A simulated experiment was designed to investigate the storage stability variation of BRA-MA during its transportation.…”

Study on Storage Stability of Activated Reclaimed Rubber Powder Modified Asphalt

“…This phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that the LBP containing active aromatic components not only sufficiently swelled the reclaimed rubber powder, but also made the density of the LBP activated reclaimed rubber powder closer to the density of the base asphalt. As a result, the storage stability of LBP activated reclaimed rubber powder modified asphalt was improved [ 23 , 25 , 28 ].…”

“…Surprisingly, reclaimed rubber powder, prepared by destroying the molecular cross-linking structure of ordinary rubber powder, modified asphalt, which effectively solved the problems of high viscosity, inferior compatibility and difficult construction of universal rubber powder modified asphalt [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. The reason for this was that under the action of high temperature and high shear force, the surface of reclaimed rubber powder produces some active groups, which is conducive to the chemical bonding with asphalt, improving the storage stability of the modified asphalt [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. For example, Wang et al [ 26 ] evaluated the performance of devulcanized rubber asphalt based on rheology and environmental effects.…”

Review and Perspectives of End-of-Life Tires Applications for Fuel and Products

“…More examples of TDP include new tires, rubber walkways, playground mulch, synthetic turf, and sports surfaces. − The second category is energy recovery or tire-derived fuels (TDF), where ELT are used as an alternative fuel source . The third category of ELT recovery is civil engineering, where ELT are repurposed for applications such as breakwaters and coastal protection, erosion barriers, ground improvement, landfill construction (as a lightweight backfill in gas venting systems, in leachate collection systems and operational liners, and for capping and daily cover), slope stabilization and retaining walls, , sound barriers and insulation applications, stormwater infiltration galleries, railroad ties, and roads Figure shows the schematic of the three categories mentioned above.…”