Numerical Simulation and Laboratory Testing Verification on the Performance of an Asphalt Pavement Seal Coat with Superficially Permeating and Solidifying Properties

Abstract

In recent years, preventive maintenance has been used widely to solve the problem of early-stage asphalt pavement damage. However, conventional preventive maintenance treatments cannot effectively prevent rutting or damage resulting from the leakage of diesel fuel to the pavement. In this context, numerical simulations of uniaxial penetration tests were conducted with the Discrete Element Model to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of pavement surface solidification with a special seal coat. Standard viscosity tests on mixtures of waterborne epoxy resin and emulsified asphalt used as the Permeating and Solidifying Seal Coat (PSSC) material were performed, and uniaxial penetration tests and accelerated loading tests were conducted on asphalt mixture specimens with and without the PSSC. The optimum proportion of PSSC material was determined and its permeability, rutting resistance, diesel fuel corrosion resistance, and durability were evaluated. The results of this study indicate that the superficially solidified pavement with PSSC can effectively enhance rutting resistance and diesel fuel corrosion resistance and can provide more durable skid resistance and better antistripping performance than conventional preventive maintenance treatments. Therefore, the PSSC could be considered a new generation of preventive maintenance treatments for asphalt pavements.

Study of Pavement Performance of Thin-Coat Waterborne Epoxy Emulsified Asphalt Mixture

“…Given the insufficient durabilities of conventional preventive maintenance techniques using bitumen emulsions, some researchers have investigated the performance of WEEA as a pavement preventive maintenance material, with the results indicating that the waterborne epoxy distributes evenly within the asphalt matrix, and significantly improves the skid resistance and durability of pavements maintained with asphalt emulsion coating layers (Hu et al, 2019). In the other research, WEEA mixtures have been used as permeating and solidifying seal coat materials in what could be considered a new generation of preventive maintenance treatments for asphalt pavements (Liang et al, 2019). It has been found that the technical compatibility of cured WEEA mixture is enhanced as the waterborne epoxy content increases over content ranges below 30% (Gu et al, 2019).…”

Development and Application of Skid Resistance Fog Seal for Pavements

“…A fog seal negatively affects the skid resistance of an asphalt pavement, but the skid resistance is greatly improved after adding skid resistance particles [12,17,18]. The fog seal permeability is the basis for ensuring that the fog seal layer fully penetrates and fills the gaps in a pavement [19][20][21].…”

“…a pavement [19][20][21]. Previous studies showed that the fog seal permeability is related to the material composition [11,12,22].…”