Characterization of asphalt mixture containing bio-extended bituminous binder with spherical indentation test

Abstract

Replacing petroleum-based bitumen with alternative bio-based binders in asphalt mixtures is a promising solution for green transition of road construction industry. The mechanical performance of bio-extended bituminous binders and asphalt mixtures is not yet fully understood, in particular with respect to dynamic mechanical behavior due to traffic and environmental exposures. As bio-binders differ in their chemical compositions, their physical properties and mechanical behavior may vary and differ significantly from bitumenbased materials. This paper aims to contribute to this important topic by evaluating a spherical indentation test as a quasi-nondestructive tool for viscoelastic characterization of the asphalt mixture containing bio-extended bituminous binder. Asphalt indentation tests are more sensitive to the binder phase properties as compared to standard macro-scale asphalt tests and may thus be a potentially useful tool for monitoring binder properties from the measurements performed on asphalt mixtures without extracting the binder.