Caractérisation d'un enrobé bitumineux haute performance et évaluation de son utilisation en couche de base en remplacement d'une grave bitume

Abstract

The annual production of grave-bitume (GB) in the province of Quebec, of 682 757 tons represents 17% of the total production, just behind ESG-10 with 49,9%. Used as base layer, the grave-bitume can withstand easily the stresses from traffic. The mix design of GB requires two different aggregates stockpile. Also, the amount of binder needed is rather high, which makes those mixes expensive. The main objective of this research program was to design and characterize a high performance bituminous mix EBHP with the comparable performance of a GB used as a base layer in a flexible pavement. In order to achieve this, different mixes with different filler content, from 9,5% to 15% were designed with a PG 64-28 bitumen. Those mixes were designed following the aggregates packing optimization used for the SMA-Cpack developed at ETS. Only two mixes were characterized, the EBHP-20_11% with 11% filler and the EBHP-20_15% with 15% filler. They were selected to study the influence of the amount of filler on the thermo-mechanical characteristics. The results have shown that the EBHP-20_11% can replace the GB-20 as a base layer mix in a flexible pavement because rutting resistance results from both mixes are similar, same goes for the thermal cracking. For the complex modulus, the value of the norm of the complex modulus at 10°C and 10 Hz are a bit higher for the EBHP compared to the GB-20. However, for fatigue resistance, the EBHP-20_11% has shown a fatigue resistance lower than the GB-20. The EBHP-20_15% did however have better fatigue resistance than the GB-20, which if probably due to the higher amount of filler in the mix.

Date	30 Jan 2014
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Alan Carter (Supervisor) & Daniel Perraton (Co-supervisor)