Research On Moisture Susceptibility Of Stone Matrix Asphalt

Recently stone matrix asphalt pavement which is famous for its excellent performance becomes popular in our country. But because of lacking experience, some projects only blindly copy the foreign criterion and experience, as a result, in the early stage of service life of the asphalt pavement failures associated with moisture damage appear. This article studies on adhesive mechanism between the asphalt and aggregate, and analyses several factors'influence on the moisture susceptibility of the mixture. Thus the design for stone matrix asphalt can be optimized reasonably, the chance of moisture damage can also be minimized, and the performance of the asphalt pavement will be improved.Based on the surface energy theory,parameters of asphalt and aggregate can be obtained respectively by the Wilhelmy plate method and the column wicking technique. Then employing the adhesive work and the difference of surface energy, the process of adhesion and flaking can be explained availably. At the same time, Soaking Marshall test and freeze-thaw splitting test are utilized to study on several factors'influence on the moisture susceptibility of the mixture, such as characters of coarse and fine aggregates, the mineral filler content, the type of asphalt, the fiber content, additives, air void, and so on. The results indicate that the degree of influence of several factors are different. Through the research the article supplies theory guide for the design of stone matrix asphalt.