Effect of recycled asphalt binder on high and intermediate temperature performance of polymer modified asphalt binder

The present study aimed at investigating the effect of Recycled Asphalt Pavement (RAP) binder on high and intermediate temperature performance of Polymer Modified Binders (PMB) through advance laboratory characterization techniques. Different RAP binder proportions (0%, 15%, 25% and 40% by the weight of PMB) were initially blended with PMB. Different characterization techniques such as Superpave rutting parameter (G*/Sinδ), Shenoy parameter, Multiple Stress Creep Recovery (MSCR) and Zero Shear Viscosity (ZSV) tests were used for evaluating high temperature performance. Based on the different rheological parameters, improvement in rutting performance was observed with the addition of RAP binder. Likewise, intermediate temperature performance was evaluated using Linear Amplitude Sweep (LAS), Double Edge Notch Tension (DENT) and Elastic Recovery (ER) test. The improvement in high temperature performance and degradation in intermediate temperature performance shows that care must be taken while selecting the appropriate amount of RAP based on prevalent failure type in the field.