Rheological properties of asphalt/SBS/clay blends

Abstract

The effect of the addition of clay as a third component in polymer modified asphalts has been investigated. After a preliminary investigation on the binary asphalt/clay and polymer/clay blends, the tertiary blends were prepared by adding the clay and polymer to the asphalt, either separately or in the form of a premixed master batch. Intercalated nanocomposites with comparable interlayer distances and glass transition temperatures were obtained in both cases. However, the results show that the mixing procedure significantly affected the final rheological properties. The master curves built in the linear viscoelastic range and represented in both the frequency and the temperature domains help to visualize and evaluate such differences. Suggested Reviewers:Dear Professor Vancso, I'm submitting the new version, revised according to referees' suggestions. I would like to thank you and the referees for helping us in improving the quality of the paper. AbstractThe effect of the addition of clay as a third component in polymer modified asphalts has been investigated. After a preliminary investigation on the binary asphalt/clay and polymer/clay blends, the tertiary blends were prepared by adding the clay and polymer to the asphalt, either separately or in the form of a premixed master batch. Intercalated nanocomposites with comparable interlayer distances and glass transition temperatures were obtained in both cases. However, the results show that the mixing procedure significantly affected the final rheological properties. The master curves built in the linear viscoelastic range and represented in both the frequency and the temperature domains help to visualize and evaluate such differences.

Asphalt binders modified by SBS and SBS/nanoclays: effect on rheological properties

“…SBS tends to flow at higher temperatures due to the styrene domains that remain solid up to about 80 °C. 21 However, the stiffening effect caused by the presence of SBS/organoclays was very significant. There is also a slightly decrease in the penetration values for SBS/organoclays MB when compared to SBS MB.…”

“…This is achieved by adding the clay either separately or premixed with the polymer. 21,22 In both cases, the results were intercalated nanocomposites. A physical mix of the asphalt binder and nanoclay leads to changes in rheological properties due to intercalation of the asphalt molecules in the nanoclay layers.…”

Effect of shear processing on the linear viscoelastic behaviour and microstructure of bitumen/montmorillonite/MDI ternary composites

“…On the other hand, layered silicates (nanoclays) have recently attracted the interest of scientists in the polymer [10] and bitumen [11] fields, given their great potential for interactions at the nanometre scale. In particular, montmorillonite is a naturally occurring mineral mostly consisting of alumina-silicates with a layered structure, corresponding to sheets of silica tetrahedrons bonded to alumina octahedrons in a 2:1 ratio.…”

“…Furthermore, a larger interlayer distance facilitates the insertion of the bitumen molecules in-between the layers during melt blending [3,12]. Depending on the extent of insertion, different morphologies are distinguished (from poor to high quality): flocculated silicate platelets, intercalated and exfoliated structures [10,11,13].…”

“…In general, addition of clay to bitumen has yielded nanocomposites characterized by shear thinning behaviour at low shear rates, with noticeably increased viscosities with respect to their parent bitumen [3,11,13,15,16].…”