Determination And Evaluation Of Structural Remaining Substance Of Asphalt Roads - Asphalt Analysis

Abstract

Especially in Germany in the future road construction will be shaped less by the new construction but rather through
the maintenance and renewal. Because the existing road substance is used up in growing ever stronger and quicker
measure. With reference to the steadily rising traffic load and for a qualified maintenance planning the knowledge of
the real structural condition of an asphalt pavement gets more and more important. The present paper presents an
approach that forecasts the remaining service life of an asphalt pavement on the basis of asphalt parameters
determined by laboratory tests. Therefore asphalt samples were taken from existing asphalt pavements which are
already bearing many years of traffic load and their specific asphalt properties such as stiffness and fatigue
resistance were determined by tests. The asphalt material properties of an asphalt road for several cross-sections (all
required cores about a length of 10m) and several sections (required cores with a distance between 100m and 150m
to each other) are determined and evaluated. Likewise, the volumetric properties of the asphalts and the material
properties from the individual components in the asphalt mix are considered in the analysis and evaluation. With
these results of the asphalt studies in the laboratory together with a forecasting method based on the analytical
design of asphalt pavements the possibility exists to give statements to the expected remaining service life of asphalt
pavements.