Evaluation of elastomeric characteristics of bitumen

modified with crumb rubber

Akhil Charak, post-graduate student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Indian Institute
of Technology, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India 517506 Email: CE19M024@IITTP.AC.IN

Abstract: Solid waste management is one of major concern worldwide and an enormous problem impacting

environmental pollution is the increase in the number of waste tyres all around the globe. Crumb rubber

modifier (CRM) obtained from waste tyre rubber can be used as reinforcing material in bitumen and thus

decrease the magnitude of this problem. The reuse of waste materials as a modifier in bitumen is a smart

solution for sustainable development, and it is believed that crumb rubber modifier (CRM) could be an

alternative polymer material in improving asphalt performance properties of the hot mix. Hence, there is

necessity to understand the properties of rubberised asphalt. This study focuses on the elastic recovery of binder

after adding different proportions of crumb rubber in it. The higher rubber content appears to increase the

elastic recovery of binder. This indicates that crumb rubber modified asphalt binder has better resistance to

cracking as compared to conventional asphalt binder.

Key words: Crumb rubber modified (CRM) asphalt, rubberised asphalt, elastic recovery.

Introduction

The generation and accumulation of solid waste material is a major problem and one of the major sources is

waste rubber tyre obtained from vehicles as the number of vehicles are increasing day by day. Some researches

had been reported that the US alone had 1 billion tires stockpiled with an annual growth of 300 million tires

generated per year (Cong, et al., 2010; Batayneh, et al., 2008). The reuse of these scrap tires in asphalt pavement

is a positive method for their disposal as asphalt concrete is widely used for construction of pavements. Bitumen

has major contribution in asphalt concrete. Thus, the improvement in pavement performance can be achieved

by modifying the binder properties. Modification of binder can be done in many ways such as modification
through glass fibers, crumb rubber etc. The application of crumb rubber in an asphalt binder is intended to

improve the binder properties by reducing the binder’s inherent temperature susceptibility. The improvement

of the properties of rubberized bitumen depends on the interaction between crumb rubber and asphalt binder

where crumb rubber particles swell in the binder to form a viscous gel resulting in increase in the viscosity of

crumb rubber modified binder (Airey, et al., 2003; Yildirim, 2007; Jeong et al., 2010). In the past decades,

some researches suggested that bitumen modified with crumb rubber has better resistance against permanent

deformation and cracking. Moreover, rubberized modified bituminous mixtures can be helpful in reducing the

thickness of asphalt overlays, noise and reflective cracking potential (Cong, et al., 2011; Rasoulzadeh, et al.,

2011). In this study, the elastic recovery property of rubberized modified bitumen was evaluated. Elastic

recovery is the ability of binder to elongate during tension and to recover its original shape when tension

released. The degree of elastic recovery used as an indicator for permanent deformation in pavements (Yildirim,

2007; Shenoy, 2008) and also elastic recovery property is important in the evaluation of both fatigue cracking

and permanent deformation (Jensen and Abdelrahman, 2006).

Research Objective and Scope

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the elastic recovery property of bitumen modified with the

crumb rubber. Regression analyses was used to model the response of material. The flow chart of work was

shown below.

Crumb rubber Elastic recovery (%)

Data collection
content (%)

Regression analyses

Interpretation of
regression statistics

Generation of equation

Figure 1: Flowchart of the work

Research Methodology

A detailed literature review had been done to achieve the objective and then following steps must be followed.

Data collection: The data of elastic recovery test results had been collected from Mashaan et al., (2011) paper.

The data had been collected for crumb rubber content (%), blending time and elastic recovery (%). However,

there were also some other parameters that affect the elastic recovery property of bitumen like crumb rubber

size, blending temperature but not considered in this study. There were only six data points of rubber content

(0%, 4%, 8%, 12%, 16% & 20%) given in the above-mentioned paper and rest of data points had been generated

from the equation that was generated through data points represented in the Mashaan et al., (2011) paper. The

bitumen grade used in the study was pen 80/100 and crumb rubber size was 0.6mm. The collected sample data

had been shown below in figure 2.

Figure 2: Collected sample data

After the collection of data, analysis had been done on the data and then linear regression had been adopted.

The reason to adopt linear regression was detailed literature review and further cross checked by plotting

scattered plots. The various trend lines plotted for scattered graph and observed that the maximum number of
data points nearer to trend line for linear trend line. The linear, exponential and polynomial trend lines for

scattered plot were shown below in figures 3,4 and 5 respectively. The crumb rubber content (%) and elastic

recovery (ER)(%) represented in X and Y axis respectively.

Figure 3: Linear trend line for scattered plot Figure 4: Exponential trend line for scattered plot

Figure 5: Polynomial trend line for scattered plot

To generate the mathematical relationship between dependent variable (elastic recovery) and independent

variables (crumb rubber content, blending time), the linear regression had been done. The output of regression

for blending time of 60 minutes had been shown below in figure 6.

 Figure 6: Regression statistics of CR content and elastic recovery for blending time of 60 minutes

The various observations can be made from above output. Since p-value used to determine whether independent

variables had to be kept in regression analysis or not. The p-value should be less than or equal to 0.05 and in

this study the parameter had their p-value less than 0.05. The coefficients of variables represent the change in

dependent variable with a one-unit change in independent variable associated with corresponding coefficient

and sign indicate increase or decrease in dependent variable. The residual plots and normal probability plot of

regression for blending time of 60 minutes were shown below in figure 7.

Figure 7: Residual plots and normal probability plot of regression for blending time of 60 minutes
The output of regression analysis for blending time of 30 minutes had been shown in figure 8 below.

Figure 8: Regression statistics of CR content and elastic recovery for blending time of 30 minutes

The residual plots and normal probability plot of regression for blending time of 30 minutes had been shown

below in figure 9.

Figure 9: Residual plots and normal probability plot of regression for blending time of 30 minutes
Result

The mathematical relationship between dependent and independent variables given as:

𝑦 = 3.8577𝑥 + 27.627 for blending time of 60 minutes ……………... (1)

𝑦 = 4.0048𝑥 + 23.622 for blending time of 30 minutes ……………... (2)

where, 𝑥 = Crumb rubber content

𝑦 = Elastic recovery

Limitations

The limitations of this study discussed below:

 The experiment had not been conducted in the lab and data had been extracted from other sources.

 Only single size crumb rubber (0.6mm), one blending temperature (180°C) and one rotating speed

(200rpm) had been used in this study.

 Chances of manual error during extraction of data.

Research Significance

The significance of this study described as follows:

 The mathematical relationship developed can be used for prediction of elastic recovery.

 The result of study can also be used for validation of data.

 The highly precise developed model gave prediction of recovery closer as to be in field.

Conclusions

The crumb rubber content found to be important factor in the elastic recovery of modified bitumen. The higher

rubber content resulted in increase in elastic recovery as shown in figures 2,3,4 and 5. It can also be concluded

that the blending time did not have that much effect on elastic recovery.

Recommendations

 The effect of different blending rate needed further to be investigated.

 The effect of various crumb rubber sizes required to be investigated.

 The crumb rubber obtained from different sources needed to be test.

  More research is needed to validate the estimation of elastic recovery.

References

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Final report-Nebraska Department of Transportation Research

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