Iranian Researcher Investigates Fatigue Performance of Asphalt Mixture
“Due to the high volume of traffic, the asphalt of high-capacity roads are subjected to severe vehicle loads which lead to the formation of fatigue cracks. Fatigue is one of the most common reasons for the failure of asphalt which is affected by various factors like the specifications of asphalt, granulation of stone materials and bitumen,” said Mojtaba Khodadadi, a PhD student in Civil-Transportation Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology.
“The main goal of this research was to investigate the fatigue performance of asphalt mixture at different scales so that the performance of the final mixture can be understood by having information at low scales,” he added, noting that comparison of the lifespan of different scales of asphalt mixture was another goal of this project.
“Also, in this project, the ability of numerical modeling in predicting the performance of asphalt mixture and optimization solutions to reach a solution closer to the laboratory results were investigated,” Khodadadi said.
“Asphalt paving, optimization of asphalt mixture compositions and more accurate life cycle cost analysis by using the information obtained from the multi-scale method were among the results of project,” he stated.
In a relevant development last year, a group of researchers from a knowledge-based company in Iran provided a basis for reducing the number of road accidents by producing self-healing smart asphalt.
“In our company, we produced a new generation of smart bitumen through polarization method which can obviate the problems of the previously-developed bitumen,” said Massoud Alizadeh, the manager of the company.
“One of the important features of these asphalts is their self-healing property; since they enjoy a shape memory, they can return to their original status after a change and a possible failure,” he added.
Alizadeh described greater depth and durability as another feature of the knowledge-based product, saying that it is also more resistant to freezing and less slippery which decrease road accidents.
According to him, 100 tons of the product has been used in roads in Mashhad and other cities of Khorassan Razavi province in Northeastern Iran.
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