Investigating the Rheological Properties of Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene-Based High-Viscosity Modified Asphalt Using Carbon Nanotubes

Jiangcai Chen, Zhenfu Huang (), Haipeng Wang, Zhenxing Yang and Tao Zhang
Additional contact information
Jiangcai Chen: Guangxi Beitou Traffic Maintenance Technology Group Co., Ltd., Nanning 530000, China
Zhenfu Huang: School of Transportation Engineering, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan 250101, China
Haipeng Wang: Sichuan Highway Planning, Survey, Design and Research Institute Ltd., Chengdu 611100, China
Zhenxing Yang: School of Transportation Engineering, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan 250101, China
Tao Zhang: Shandong Water Conservancy Survey and Design Institute, Jinan 250101, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) is currently the most widely used asphalt modifier. However, high-SBS-concentration high-viscosity modified asphalts (HVMA) are characterized by poor flow and storage instability. To make up for the lack of performance of traditional SBS-HVMA, a nano-based high-viscosity composite modified asphalt with excellent performance was developed. Since carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are nanomaterials, they are prone to agglomeration when added to the modified asphalt, and the dispersion effect is poor, which affects the modifier’s contribution rate. To better disperse CNTs in the modified asphalt, the nanomaterials were modified, and two new CNT additives were prepared by combining two polymers with CNTs. The appropriate ratio of these two new additives was selected to be further combined with SBS to obtain CNTs/SBS-HVMA. The flow characteristics and anti-aging properties of the three kinds of bitumen in different temperature ranges were studied by taking the common SBS-HVMA and Tafpack super (TPS) high-viscosity modified asphalts (TPS/SBS-HVMA) as comparison samples and by evaluating the road performance of a stone mastic asphalt (SMA-13) mixture. The storage stability, workable performance, rheological characteristics, and aging resistance of three high-viscosity asphalts were analyzed through a segregation test, dynamic viscosity analysis, Brookfield viscosity measurements, bending beam rheometer (BBR) tests, dynamic shear rheometer (DSR), and multiple stress creep recovery (MSCR) before and after short-term aging. The experimental results showed that CNT/SBS-HVMA exhibited good storage stability and workability. DSR measurements and other rheological tests revealed that TPS/SBS-HVMA had higher low-temperature flexibility than the other modified asphalts, while CNT/SBS-HVMA exhibited good high-temperature resistance, aging resistance, and deformation resistance. Through the verification of asphalt mixture performance, it was found that the high-temperature rutting resistance of CNTs/SBS-HVMA prepared by new CNT additives was 7% and 28% higher than those of SBS-HVMA and TPS/SBS-HVMA, respectively, but the low-temperature performance of CNT/SBS-HVMA was 5% lower than that of SBS-HVMA. This showed that CNT/SBS addition improved the high-temperature performance of the asphalt without a significant negative impact on the low-temperature performance of the asphalt.

Keywords: high-viscosity modified asphalt; carbon nanotubes (CNTs); styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS); rheological properties; Christensen–Anderson–Marasteanu (CAM) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/1/71/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/1/71/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2022:i:1:p:71-:d:1009970

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().