LECTURE NO 2

ENGR.MUHAMMAD ASIM

UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

LAHORE-PAKISTAN
 HIGHWAY MATERIALS
•Soils
•Aggregates
•Bituminous materials
 BOOKS
•Highways 4th Edition by C.A.O Flaherty
( page 118 – 162)
•Highway Engineering 6th Edition by Paul
H. Wright ( page 430 – 439)
•NHA Specifications
 AGGREGATES
The term "aggregate" refers to granular
mineral particles that are widely used for
highway bases, subbases, and backfill.
Aggregates are also used in combination with
a cementing material to form concretes for
bases, subbases, wearing surface and drainage
structures. Sources of aggregates include
natural deposits of sand and gravel,
pulverized concrete and asphalt pavements,
crushed stone, and blastfurnace slag.
 Properties of Aggregates
The most important properties of aggregates
used for highway construction are
•particle size and gradation.
•hardness or resistance to wear.
•durability or resistance to weathering.
•specific gravity and absorption.
•chemical stability.
•particle shape and surface texture.
•freedom from deleterious particles or
substances
 Particle Size and Gradation of Aggregates
A key property of aggregates used for highway
bases and surfaces is the distribution of
particle sizes in the aggregate mix. The
gradation of aggregates, that is the blend of
particle sizes in the mix, affects the density,
strength, and economy of the pavement
structure. A grain-size analysis is used to
determine the relative proportions of various
particle sizes in a mineral aggregate mix.
The grain-size analysis data are usually
plotted on an aggregate grading chart, as
shown in Figure. With the aid of such a
chart, engineers determine a preferred
aggregate gradation and require that the
gradation of aggregates used for highway
projects conform to the limits of a
specification band.
Testing sieves commonly used for highway
projects are those with 2-1/2, 2, 1-1/2, 1, 3/4,
1/2, and 3/8 in. square openings for the large
fractions and those with 4, 8, 16, 30, 50, 100,
and 200 meshes per inch for the smaller
fractions. The latter sieves are designated
No.4, No. 10, and so on.
 Resistance to Wear
Materials used in highway pavements should
be hard and resist wear due to the loading
from compaction equipment, the polishing
effects of traffic, and the internal abrasive
effects of repeated loadings. The most
commonly accepted measure of the hardness
of aggregates is the Los Angeles abrasion test.
The machine used in the Los Angeles abrasion
test consists of a hollow steel cylinder, closed
at both ends and mounted on shafts in a
horizontal position (Fig. 15-7).
A removable steel shelf extending the length of
the cylinder is mounted on the interior surface
of the cylinder.
To perform the Los Angeles abrasion test, a
clean sample of the aggregate to be tested is
placed in the cylinder along with a standard
weight of steel spheres as an abrasive charge.
The drum is then rotated at a speed of 30 to 33
rpm for 500 revolutions, after which the
aggregate sample is removed and sieved on a
No. 12 (1.70 mm) sieve.
The material retained on the sieve is
washed, dried to a constant mass, and
weighed. The difference between the
original mass and the final mass of the
sample, expressed as a percentage of the
original mass, is reported as the percentage
of wear. A detailed procedure for this test is
given by AASHTO Method T96 (2).
 Durability or Resistance to Weathering
The durability of aggregates is commonly
measured by a soundness test, as described in
AASHTO Method Tl04 (2). This test measures
the resistance of aggregates to disintegration in
a saturated solution of sodium or magnesium
sulfate. It simulates the weathering of
aggregates that occur in nature.
The test is made by immersing sized
fractions of the aggregate to be tested in a
saturated solution of sodium or magnesium
sulfate. The aggregate is then removed and
dried in an oven to a constant mass. This
process is repeated for a specified number
of cycles, typically five. After the repeated
cycle of alternate wetting and drying, the
aggregate is divided into fractions by
sieving, and the percentage weight loss is
determined for each fraction.
The percentage loss is expressed as a
weighted average. For a given sieve size, the
percentage weighted average loss is the
product of the percentage passing that sieve
and the percentage passing that sieve in the
original material. The total of such values is
th percent loss test value.
 Specific Gravity and Absorption
The specific gravity and absorption of
aggregates are important properties that
are required for the design of concrete and
bituminous mixes. The specific gravity of a
solid is the ratio of its mass to that of an
equal volume of distilled water at a
specified temperature. Because aggregates
may contain water-permeable voids, two
measures of specific gravity of aggregates
are used: apparent specific gravity and bulk
specific gravity.
Apparent specific gravity, GA, is
computed on the basis of the net volume
of the aggregates, that is, the volume
excluding the water-permeable voids.
Thus,
M
D
V
G  A
N
w
 M
D
V
G 
A
N
w
where
MD = dry mass of the aggregate
VN = net volume of the aggregates,
excluding the volume of absorbed water
γw = density of water
The bulk specific gravity, GB , is computed
on the basis of the total volume of the
aggregates including the water-permeable
voids:
M
D
V
G  B
B
w
VB = where total volume of the aggregates,
including the volume of absorbed water
The difference between the apparent and
bulk specific gravities accounts for the water-
permeable voids of the aggregates. One can
measure the volume of such voids by
weighing the aggregates dry and in a
saturated, surface dry conditions, that is, with
all permeable voids filled with water. The
difference between the two masses is the mass
of the absorbed water, Mw. The absorption of
water is usually expressed as a percentage of
the mass of the dry aggregate,
 M
percentage absorption  w
 100
M
D
 Chemical Stability of Aggregates
Certain aggregates may be unsuitable for a
particular highway construction application
because of the chemical composition of the
aggregate particles. In asphalt mixes, certain
aggregates that have an excessive affinity for
water may contribute to what is known as
film stripping, leading to disintegration of
asphalt concrete.
An aggregate that is "hydrophobic" in nature
may be said to be one which exhibits a high
degree of resistance to film stripping in the
presence of water. The bituminous substance
in a bituminous mixture may generally be
assumed to be present in the form of thin
films surrounding the aggregate particles and
filling, or partially filling, the void spaces
between adjacent particles.
These thin films of bituminous material adhere to
the surface of normal aggregates an contribute to
the shearing resistance of the mixture, this effect
being generally considered as a part of the
"cohesion" of the mix. On continued exposure to
water, either in the laboratory or in the field,
bituminous mixtures containing certain
aggregates show a definite tendency to loose
shearing resistance or "strength" because of a
decrease in cohesion due primarily to replacement
of the bituminous films surrounding the aggregate
particles with similar films of water.
Aggregates that exhibit this tendency to a
marked, detrimental degree are termed
"hydrophilic" aggregates, hydrophilic
meaning "water-loving." Conversely,
aggregates that show little or no decrease in
strength due to film stripping are called
"hydrophobic" or "water-hating."
In judging the relative resistance to film
stripping of aggregates, several, different
laboratory procedures have been used,
including various immersion stripping
tests, such as the ASTM D1664 Static
Immersion Test, and various immersion-
mechanical tests, such as the ASTM DI075
Immersion-Compression Test.
 Other Properties of Aggregates
Specifications for aggregates used in
highway construction commonly have
requirements related to the particle shape,
surface texture, and cleanliness of the
aggregate. Specifications for aggregates used
in bituminous mixes usually require that the
aggregates be clean, tough, durable in
nature, and free of excess amounts of flat or
elongated pieces, dust, clay balls, and other
objectionable material.
GRANULAR SUBBASE
 DESCRIPTION

This item shall consist of furnishing,

spreading in one or more layers and
compacting granular subbase according to
the Specifications and the Drawings and/or
as directed by the Engineer.
 MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS

Granular subbase material shall consist of

natural or processed aggregates such as
gravel, sand or stone fragment and shall be
clean and free from dirt, organic matter &
other deleterious substances and shall be of
such nature that it can be compacted readily
under watering and rolling to form a firm,
stable subbase.
The material shall comply with the following
grading and quality requirements:
The Coefficient of Uniformity D60 / D10 shall
be not less than 3,
• The subbase material shall have a gradation
curve within the limits for grading B given
below. However grading A may be allowed
by the Engineer in special circumstances.
• The Material shall have a CBR value of at
least 50%, determined according to
AASHTO T 193. The CBR value shall be
obtained at a density corresponding to
ninety-eight (98) % of the maximum dry
density determined according to AASHTO T
180 (Method D).
The coarse aggregate material retained
on sieve No. 4 shall have a percentage of
wear by the Los Angeles Abrasion
(AASHTO T 96) of not more than fifty
(50) %.
In order to avoid intrusion of silty and
clayey material from the subgrade in the
subbase, the ratio D15 (Subbase) / D85
(Subgrade) should be less than five (5).
• Where D85 and D15 are the particle
diameters corresponding to eighty-five (85)
% and fifteen (15) %, respectively, passing
(by weight) in a grain size analysis, curve.
• The fraction passing the 0.075 mm (No.
200) sieve shall not be greater than two
third of the fraction passing the 0.425 mm
(No. 40) sieve. The fraction passing the
0.425 mm sieve shall have a liquid limit of
not greater than twenty-five (25) and a
plasticity index of six (6) or less.
• If oversize is encountered, screening of
material at source, shall invariably be done,
no hand picking shall be allowed, however
hand picking may be allowed by the
Engineer, if over-size quantity is less than
five (5) % of the total mass.
• Sand equivalent for all classes shall be
twenty-five (25) minimum.
CRUSHED AGGREGATE BASE
COURSE
 DESCRIPTION

This item shall consist of furnishing,

spreading and compacting one (1) or
more layers of Crushed Aggregate Base
Course on a prepared subgrade, subbase,
or existing road surface, in accordance
with the Specifications and the Drawings
and/or as directed by the Engineer.
 MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS
Material for crushed aggregate base course
shall consist of crushed hard durable gravel,
rock or stone fragments. It shall be clean and
free from organic matters, lumps of clay and
other deleterious substances. The material shall
be of such a nature that it can be compacted
readily under watering and rolling to form a
firm, stable base for both flexible and rigid
pavements. The crushed aggregate base course
shall comply with the following grading and
quality requirements:
• The gradation curve of the material shall
be smooth and within the envelope limits
for Grading A or B given below:
• Crushed Aggregate (material retained on
sieve No. 4) shall consist of material of
which at least ninety (90) % by weight
shall be crushed particles, having a
minimum of two (2) fractured faces.
• The Coarse aggregate shall have a
percentage of wear by the Loss Angeles
Abrasion test (AASHTO T 96) of not
more than forty (40).
• The material shall have a loss of less than
twelve (12) % when subjected to five cycles
of the Sodium Sulphate Soundness test
according to AASHTO T 104.
• The sand equivalent determined according
to AASHTO T 176 shall not be less than
forty-five (45) and the portion of filler,
including any blended material, passing
No. 40 mesh sieve shall have a liquid limit
not more than 25 and a plasticity index not
more than 4 when tested in accordance
with AASHTO T 89 & T 90.
• The material passing the 19 mm sieve
shall have a CBR value of minimum
eighty (80) %, tested according to the
AASHTO T 193. The CBR value shall
be obtained at the maximum dry
density determined according to
AASHTO T 180 (Method D).
• Laminated material shall not exceed
fifteen (15) % of total volume of
crushed aggregate base course.
 Filler for Blending
If filler, in addition to that naturally present
in the crushed aggregate base course material
is necessary for meeting the grading
requirement or for satisfactory bonding of the
material, it shall be uniformly blended with
the base course material at the crushing plant
or in a pugmill unless otherwise approved.
The material for such purpose shall be
obtained from sources approved by the
Engineer. The material shall be free
from organic matter, dirt, shale, clay
and clay lump or other deleterious
matter and shall conform to following
requirement:
However the combined aggregates prepared by
mixing the coarse material and filler shall satisfy
the requirements as mentioned above.
 BITUMINOUS MATERIALS
Bituminous materials are used extensively for
roadway construction, primarily because of
their excellent binding or cementing power
and their waterproofing properties, as well as
their relatively low cost. Bituminous
materials consist primarily of bitumen,
which, according to ASTM D8, is a class of
black or darkcolored solid or viscous
cementitious substances composed chiefly of
high-molecular-weight hydrocarbons; by
definition, it is soluble in carbon disulfide.
 Bituminous materials are divided into two
broad categories:
1) asphalts
2) tars.
•Asphalts are the residues of the petroleum
oils. A great majority of asphalts used
nowadays are the residues from the refinery
of crude oils, although there are natural
deposits called "native asphalt."
•Tars are residues from the destructive
distillation of organic substances such as coal,
wood, or petroleum. Tars obtained from the
destructive distillation are crude tars, which
must undergo further refinement to become
road tars.
Asphalts have no odor, are more resistant to
weathering, and less susceptible to temperature
than tars, which have a pungent (creosote-like)
odor and react to weathering and temperature.
Asphalt will be dissolved in petroleum oils
whereas tars will not. Therefore, tars have been
used to seat asphalt concrete surfaces, such as
fog seals, to improve the oil resistance of asphalt
surfaces. Asphalts are black in color, whereas
tars are usually brown-black in color.
Today, tars are not used extensively as binders
for highway pavements.
 Sources of obtaining Asphalts
1) Petroleum Asphalts or Penetration-grade
refinery bitumens.
Bitumens that are produced artificially from
petroleum crudes (usually napthenicand
asphaltic-base crudes) are known as
refinery bitumens.
2) Natural asphalts: It includes the following
•Lake Asphalt
•Rock Asphalt
 Lake Asphalt
The largest natural deposit of lake asphalt
occurs on the Island of Trinidad off the north-
west coast of South America. The main lake of
asphalt covers an area of roughly 35 ha, has a
depth of about 90 m, and is estimated to
contain 10 to 15 million tonnes of material.
Following excavation, the asphalt is heated to
160°C to drive out gases and moisture, and
then run through strainers to remove vegetable
debris before being poured into wooden barrels
for export under the name 'Trinidad Epure' or
'Refined Trinidad Lake Asphalt'.
The refined lake asphalt product typically
contains about 55 per cent bitumen, 35 per
cent mineral matter, and 10 per cent
organic matter. Following the first
commercial shipment to England (in 1840),
it was widely used in road construction
until the introduction of pitch-bitumen in
the 1960s, i.e. a blend of 70-80 per cent
bitumen with 20-25 per cent coal-tar pitch,
which had similar qualities.
Digging at an asphalt lake
Trinidad Lake Asphalt
 Natural rock asphalts
Natural rock asphalts are mainly limestones
and sandstones that are impregnated with,
typically, 5-15 per cent of natural bitumen.
Historically, the natural rock asphalt used in
the UK was imported from the Val de Travers
region in Switzerland and from the Gard
region in France. Whilst their usage is covered
by a British Standard, natural rock asphalts
are rarely employed in road construction in
the UK today.
 PRODUCTION OF ASPHALT
As mentioned earlier, asphalts are the residues,
by-products, of the refinery of petroleum oils. A
wide variety of refinery processes, such as the
straight distillation process, solvent
deasphalting process, and solvent extraction
process, may be used to produce asphalt of
different consistency and other desirable
properties. Depending on the sources and
characteristics of the crude oils and on the
properties of asphalt required, more than one
processing method may be employed.
 Cutback Asphalt
Asphalt cement produced from the vacuum-
steam distillation exists as a semisolid at room
temperature, and usually proper workability
can be attained by heating the asphalt cement
to a temperature of 120 to 165°C (2500P to
3300P) to liqufy it. In order for asphalt
products to attain workability at room
temperature, they must be rendered liquid at
room temperature.
There are two ways to liquefy asphalt
without resorting to heat:
•Dissolve (cut) the asphalt in solvent
• Emulsify it in water.
When volatile solvents are mixed with
asphalt cement to make a liquid product,
the mixture is called "cutback asphalt."
After a cutback asphalt is exposed to air, the
volatile solvent evaporates, and the asphalt
in the mixture regains its original
characteristics (cured). Depending on the
volatility of the solvent used, the rate of
curing of cutback asphalt can vary from a
few minutes to several days. Following are
three types of cutback asphalt and the
solvent used.
 1)Rapid-curing (RC): gasoline or naphtha
2)Medium-curing (MC): kerosene
3)Slow-curing (SC): road oils
Cutback asphalt is commercially available in
different grades, as shown in Table 15-5. The
suffix numbers, for example MC-70, represent
the minimum kinematic viscosity in centistokes
at 60°C (1400P) for the particular grade. Spec-
ifications for RC, MC, and SC are given in
ASTM D2026, D2027, and D2028, respectively.
Cutback asphalt is increasingly being replaced
by emulsified asphalt in commercial use.
 Emulsified Asphalt
Emulsified asphalt is a mixture of asphalt
cement, water, and an emulsifying agent.
These three constituents are fed
simultaneously into a colloid mill to produce
extremely small globules (5-10 µ) of asphalt
cement, which are suspended in the water.
The emulsified agent imparts the electric
charges (cationic or anionic) to the surface of
the asphalt particles, which causes them to
repel one another; thus the asphalt particles
do not coalesce.
The emulsified asphalt thus produced is quite
stable and could have a shelf life of several
months.
When an emulsified asphalt is exposed to the
air, alone or mixed with an aggregate, it "sets"
or "breaks," because the asphalt globules react
with the surface they are in contact with and
coalesce, squeezing out the water between
them.
The evaporation of water is the primary
mechanism that finally causes the anionic
emulsified asphalt to "break."
Electrochemical processes are the primary
mechanisms that cause the cationic
emulsified asphalt to break.
Emulsified asphalt offers certain advantages
in construction, particularly when used with
moist aggregates or in wet weather. An
emulsified asphalt does not require a solvent
to make it liquid and thus is relatively
pollution-free. Because emulsified asphalt
has low viscosity at the ambient
temperature, it generally can be used
without additional heat. These factors tend
to make emulsified asphalt more energy-
efficient and less costly than cutback asphalt.
ASPHALTIC MATERIALS
ASPHALT CEMENT
Asphalt Cement shall be an oil asphalt or a
mixture of refined liquid asphalt and
refined solid asphalt, prepared from crude
asphaltic petroleum. It shall be free from
admixture with any residues obtained by
the artificial distillation of coal, coal tar or
paraffin and shall be homogeneous and
free from water.
No emulsification shall occur when a thirty
(30) gm sample is boiled for two (2) hours
with two hundred fifty (250) cu cm of distilled
water in a five hundred (500) cu cm
Erlenmeyer flask equipped with a reflux
condenser.
Asphalt Cement shall be classified by
penetration and when tested in accordance
with the standard methods of tests of the
AASHTO, the grades of asphalts shall
conform to the requirements set forth in
Table 301-2. The grade of asphalt to be used
shall be in accordance with these
Specifications or the Special Provisions or as
directed by the Engineer.
 ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
In areas where highly frost susceptible soils
and severe low temperature conditions are
encountered, it may be necessary to remove
and replace soils susceptible to frost heave
or take other precautions prior to pavement
construction. In extremely hot climates,
asphalt mixes should be designed to resist
rutting and maintain stiffness at high
temperatures.
Because asphalt mixtures are influenced
by temperature, it is recommended that
different asphalt grades be used where
different temperature conditions prevail.
Table below gives recommended asphalt
grades for various temperature
conditions.
Both medium setting (MS) and slow setting (SS)
emulsified asphalts are used in emulsified asphalt base
mixes. They can be either of two types: cationic (ASTM
D 2397 or AASHTO M 208) or anionic (ASTM D 977 or
AASHTO M 140). Selecting one of the two shall depend
on the type of aggregate used for better affinity.
The grade of emulsified asphalt is selected primarily on
the basis of its ability to satisfactorily coat the
aggregate. This is determined by coating and stability
test (ASTM D 244, AASHTO T 59). Other factors
important in the selection are the water availability at
the job site, anticipated weather at the time of
construction, the mixing process to be used and the
curing rate.