CHARACTERIZATION OF ASPHALT BINDER MODIFIED WITH POLYSTYRENE USING SUPERPAVE SPECIFICATION

Environmental problems have been counted as a critical topic in the construction. The issue of throwing away waste materials is considered as a pivotal subject in modern engineering orientation. Reuse, recycling and reduce the wastes suppose as the only methods to recover those waste created. Polystyrene is considered as one of the materials vastly utilized in manufacturing applications. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possibility of using recycled polystyrene as an additive to asphalt. The polystyrene waste was added up to asphalt by volume to the asphalt in 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20%. Penetration degree, ductility, specific gravity, softening point, flash and fire point, Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR), Bending Beam Rheometer (BBR), Rolling Thin Film oven (RTFO) and Pressure Aging Vessel (PAV) tests were performed in this research study. In general, the results in this study indicated that the addition of polystyrene into asphalt increases the penetration, ductility and flash point. On the other hand, it decreases the softening value and specific gravity. It found also that the rutting decrease due to the additives of polystyrene and similar trends in critical high temperature cracking and fatigue cracking resistance observed. Furthermore, the effect of polystrene influenced significantly the creep behavior by increasing the creep rate and decreasing the creep stiffness and low temperature. That means the resistance of thermal cracking would increase by polystyrene contents.