Strength and Durability Characteristics of Fiber Modified Asphaltic Bitumen

Abstract

Flexible pavements with bituminous surfacing are widely used in India. Exponential increase in traffic, overloading of commercial vehicles and significant variations in daily and seasonal temperatures have shown some limitations of conventional bitumen performance. Earlydevelopments of distress symptoms like cracking, rutting, raveling, undulations, shoving and potholing of bituminous surfacing have been reported for flexible pavements. Toenhance the properties of road, bitumen is modified by the addition of some waste materials. This is a more safe and eco-friendly technique. The aim of the project is to study the performance of waste materials with bitumen. Here the normal bitumen is modified by the addition of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5% of different waste materials like glass fiber and coir fiber. The resultsshow that the modified bitumen using coir fiber has better ductility. By increasing the percentage of glass fiber and coir fiber helps the bitumen to attain more stability, ductility, and hence it also reduces aging effect of it. The strength improvement in modified bitumen depends upon the type and percentage of addition of fiber, which acts as a reinforcement.

Keywords:Waste Fiber, Bituminous Binder, Asphalt Mixture, Optimum Binder Content, Bulk Density, Stability, Flow