University of Engineering & Technology Taxila

Department of Civil Engineering

Project Supervisor:
Dr. Imran Hafeez

Group Members:
Aban Bukhari (Group Leader)
Zeeshan Ali

Project Title: Forensic Analysis of Asphalt Mixes.

Main Focus: Finding ways to study the interconnectivity of voids in asphaltic samples mainly
software and imagery techniques.

Abstract:
Forensic Analysis of Asphalt Mixes

University of Engineering and Technology Taxila

Pavement can be of two types, i.e. Rigid and Flexible. Flexible pavement is also called Asphaltic-
Pavement. It consist mainly of Aggregate and Bitumen, but may also contain some additives
depending upon circumstances. While the asphalt is being laid, some gaps/voids may remain in
their layers.
Voids in pavements are the pockets of air of varying sizes embedded between the binders (i.e.
Bitumen) coated aggregates in the final compacted mix. Small percentage of these voids can help
in compaction by allowing the asphalt to flow in between but a pavement having high percentage
of voids is prone to the entry of water and damaging air. But these cannot flow unless the voids
are interconnected. On the basic focus of our work is to find ways to investigate the voids
interconnectivity. The purpose can be served sing a number of imagery techniques involving x-
ray, tomography, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and a lot more. Scans from these techniques
can be fed to some computer software to analyze all the possible networks of connected voids but
most suitable ones are ImageJ, Drishti and Blob3d. Proper working on these and some other
applications can help reach to a conclusion.

Currently we are working on ImageJ and Drishti software. Furthermore, we are looking for some
better and suitable software and techniques for analysis of asphalt.