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Marshall Mix Design Procedure concrete for design

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Category: Highway Engineering
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The word asphalt, asphaltic concrete, bituminous mixes all is
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pointing to the same things almost. The shining blackish paved road
we ride almost every day and almost several hours of our lives are concrete pavement
spent over them is asphaltic pavements.
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You know asphalt pavements have the highest riding quality among all others

The transportation engineers, know that the two basic types of

pavements is rigid pavement or flexible pavement. Flexible
pavement deforms slightly under the application of the dynamic load Recent Posts
of traffic whereas rigid pavement is the one that stands firm and it
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We would not here go into the details of these but as far as flexible Recent Comments
pavements are concerned these are one of the most common, high
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riding quality paved roads on earth. The flexible pavements have a Pile Foundation
wearing course (the top few cms of the highway which is expected
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to get wear and tear due to traffic movement) which is made up of Level? Pile Foundation
high quality fine asphaltic concrete.
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Asphalt is basically combination of bitumen and aggregate, the [PDF]
surface of aggregates are applied with bitumen and then bitumen
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acts as a binding agent that makes it a solid and firm material called surveying
asphaltic concrete.
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Contents  Light Weight

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1. What is HMA or Hot Mix Asphalt Ad terratest-lwd.com

2. What is Job Mix Formula (JMF) What is Pile cut-off

Level? Pile...
3. Properties of Ideal Asphaltic Concrete Mix
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4. Marshall Method of Mix Design
Concrete Mixing
5. Marshall Mix Design Procedure Plant

5.1. Theoretical Specific Gravity Ad JIANXIN Machinery

5.2. Bulk Specific Gravity What is Job Mix

Formula
5.3. Air Voids Percent Vv
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5.4. Percent Volume of Bitumen Vb
6+ Factors Affecting
5.5. Voids in Mineral Aggregate (VMA) Design Of Pavements
5.6. Voids Filled with Bitumen VFB or Voids Filled with Aspahlt (VFA) iamcivilengineer.com

5.7. Marshal Stability and Flow Test Marshall Stability

Test ASTM D6927
6. Selection of Optimum Asphalt Binder Content
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What is Compass
What is HMA or Hot Mix Asphalt Surveying
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Sometimes there is a term written in some texts as HMA or Hot Mix Los Angeles Abrasion
Resistance Test
Aspahlt it is basically the same thing like that of Bitumen as asphalt
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binder and aggregate. Highway Materials
 Types and...
HMA mix design is the process of determining what aggregate to
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use, what asphalt binder to use and what the optimum combination
Difference between
of these two ingredients should be. End Bearing Piles...
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Main objective is to determine an economical and workable mix Interesting Civil

Engineering...
which comprises of a suitable blend of aggregates and a
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corresponding asphalt content.
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What is Job Mix Formula (JMF) iamcivilengineer.com

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The end result of a successful mix design is a recommended
Das
mixture of aggregate and asphalt binder. This recommended
mixture, which also includes aggregate gradation and asphalt binder Raised Pavement Markers Cat’s
eyes Road Reflectors
type is often referred to as the job mix formula (JMF)

Properties of Ideal Asphaltic

Aggregate Impact Value (AIV)
Test for Aggregates

Concrete Mix 
The main objective of the Job Mix Formula, Mix Design Method, California Bearing Ratio (CBR)
for determining Shear Strength of
Marshall Mix Design method is to determine an ideal and optimum
subgrade
asphalt mix that has following properties :-

1. Resistance to permanent deformation: The mix should not distort Asphalt Prime Coat, What is

or be displaced when subjected to traffic loads. The resistance to asphalt primer?

permanent deformation is more important at high temperatures.

2. Fatigue resistance: the mix should not crack when subjected to

repeated loads over a period of time.

3. Resistance to low temperature cracking. This mix property is

important in cold regions.

4. Durability: the mix should contain sufficient asphalt cement to

ensure an adequate film thickness around the aggregate particles.
The compacted mix should not have very high air voids, which
accelerates the aging process.

5. Resistance to moisture-induced damage.

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7. Workability: the mix must be capable of being placed and someone@somedomain.com
compacted with reasonable effort.
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8. Low noise and good drainage properties: If the mix is to be used
for the surface (wearing) layer of the pavement structure.

Marshall Method of Mix Design Top 5 Posts

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There are two major features of the Marshall method of designing

mixes namely,
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1. density – voids analysis
2. Stability – flow tests. Select Month

Marshall Mix Design Procedure

The first step in the Marshall Mix Design method is to prepare the Follow Us
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samples as described below :-
The aggregate gradation is selected from the following table and
then after sieving the desired quantity of each gradation
approximately 1200 grams of aggregates are taken.

Table no. 1 Aggregate Specification

The aggregates are then heated to a temperature of 175 to 190
degree centigrade. As for first trial 3.5 to 4.0 percent by weight of the
aggregates Bitumen is taken and heated to a temperature of 121 to
125 degree centigrade.

Sample Preparation

The Marshall Mold Assembly is preheated and the heated

aggregates and bitumen are thoroughly mixed at temperature of 154
to 160 degree centigrade and then placed in the mould.
The mould is then compacted by Marshall Hammer device with 50
blows on each side of the mixture at temperature around 138 to 149
degree centigrade.
 Marshall Drop Hammer

In the next trial the Bitumen content is varied by +0.5 % of the

weight of mineral aggregate and above procedure is repeated to
have a required number of specimen to be tested.
After the preparation of the sample, the properties of the mix is
determined. The properties that are of interest include
1. Theoretical Specific Gravity (Gt)
2. Bulk Specific Gravity (Gm)
3. Percent Air Void (Vv)
4. Percent Volume of Bitumen (Vb)
5. Percent Void in Mixed Aggregate (VMA)
6. Percent Voids Filled with Bitumen (VFB)

Theoretical Specific Gravity 

Specific gravity or relative density is the weight of the substance
compared with the weight of a standard reference object, usually
water, at equal volume and at some specified temperature. It
actually gives us the idea that how much one object is heavier than
the reference object or water.
Theoretical specific gravity Gt is the specific gravity without
considering air voids that means it is the specific gravity of the
sample when zero air voids exists and maximum compaction is
achieved. The maximum specific gravity of the aggregate admixture
should be obtained as per ASTM D2041, however the difficult
procedure mostly following equation is used to calculate the
maximum specific gravity.

Bulk Specific Gravity 

Bulk specific gravity is the actual specific gravity Gm while
considering air voids and it is found by the following formula :-
Where Wd is the Dry weight of the sample, WSSD is the Saturated
Surface Dry Weight and Wsub is the weight of the sample in water.
To get accurate bulk specific gravity, the specimen is coated with
thin film of paraffin wax, when weight is taken in water. This however
requires to consider the weight and volume of wax in the
calculation.
Air Voids Percent Vv
Air voids Vv is the percent of air voids by volume in the specimen.
The total volume of the small interstices or voids of air between the
coated aggregate particles throughout a compacted paving mixture,
expressed as a percent of the bulk volume of the compacted paving
mixture. It is expressed as :-

Where Va or Vv is the air voids percentage

Gmb = Bulk specific gravity of compacted asphalt mixture.
Gmm = Theoretical maximum specific gravity of Bituminous Paving
Mixtures
Percent Volume of Bitumen Vb 
It is the percent volume of bitumen in the total volume of the mix.
Voids in Mineral Aggregate (VMA)
The percent voids in Mineral Aggregate (VMA) is the percentage of
void spaces between the granular particles in the compacted paving
mixture, including the air voids and the volume occupied by the
effective asphalt content.
VMA = 100 – (Gbcm x Pta)/ Gbam
Where
VMA = percent voids in Mineral Aggregates
Gbcm = bulk specific gravity of compacted specimen
Gbam = Bulk specific gravity of aggregate mixture
Pta = aggregate percent by weight of total paving mixture.
Voids Filled with Bitumen VFB or Voids
Filled with Aspahlt (VFA)
Voids filled with bitumen is the voids in the mineral aggregate
framework filed with the bitumen.
The portion of the voids in the mineral aggregate that contains
asphalt binder.
VFA = VMA – Pa
Where
VMA = percent voids in Mineral Aggregates
Pa = Percent air voids
After the preparation of the sample and determination of the
properties mentioned above the Sample is taken for the Marshall
Stability and Flow test.
Marshal Stability and Flow Test
After the sample preparation, the sample is extracted with the help
of sample extractor as show :-

Marshall Sample Extractor

The extracted sample is immersed in a bath of water at a

temperature of 60 degree centigrade for a duration of 30 minutes.
The sample is then placed in a Marshall Stability Testing Machine
and loaded at a constant rate of deformation of 5 mm per minute
until failure. The Total Maximum load in kN that causes the failure of
the specimen is taken as Marshall Stability. The stability value is
also corrected for volume it will be explained later.
The Flow Value is also determined as :-
The total amount of deformation in units of 0.25 mm that occurs at
maximum load is called flow value.
The total time between removing the specimen from the bath and
completion of the test should not exceed 30 seconds.
The marshall stability and test provides the performance prediction
measures for the Marshall Mix Design Method.
Marshall Stability and flow values along with density, air voids in the
total mix, voids in mineral aggregates or voids filled with asphalt or
both filled with asphalt are used for laboratory mix design and
evaluation of asphalt mixtures. In addition, Marshall Stability and
flow can be used to monitor the plant process of producing asphalt
mixtures. Marshall Stability and flow may also be used to relatively
evaluate different mixes and the effect of conditioning such as with
water.
The Marshall Stability and flow test results are applicable to dense-
graded asphalt mixtures with maximum size aggregate upto 1 in. in
size. For the purpose of mix design, Marshall Stability and flow test
results should consist of the average of a minimum of three
specimens at each increment of binder content range is generally
selected on the basis of experience and historical testing data of the
component materials, but may involve trial and error to include the
desirable range of mix properties.
Stability, flow, density, air voids, and voids filled with asphalt binder,
may be plotted against binder content to allow selection of an
optimum binder content for the mixture.
Selection of Optimum Asphalt
Binder Content
The optimum asphalt or Binder content is actually determined after
analyzing the results obtained from Marshall stability and flow test,
density analysis, voids analysis.
The procedure to determine optimum Binder content is as under :-
1. Plot the following graphs and charts
a. Between Asphalt Binder content (x – axis) and % air voids (y-
axis) – usually with increase in binding content the percent air voids
decreases.
b. Between Asphalt Binder Content (x – axis) and Density (y-
axis) – usually with increase in asphalt content the density increase
but after a peak it lowers down.
c. Between Asphalt Binder content (x-axis) and Flow (y-axis) –
usually it exhibits a liner or near to linear relation.
d. Between Asphalt Binder Content (x-axis) and Marshall Stability
(y-axis) usually it show a parabolic like curve with linear relation at
the start and after a peak it goes down
e. Between Asphalt Binder Content (x-axis) and VFA % (Voids
Filled with Asphalt or Binding Agent) it also usually shows a near to
liner relation
f. Between Asphalt Binder Content (x-axis) and %VMA (Voids in
Mineral Aggregate) (y-axis) it shows reverse parabola with reveres
relation at start and then linear relation at the end.
2. With the help of the graphs plotted Three bitumen content are
noted :-
a. Binder content corresponding to maximum stability
 b. Binder content corresponding to maximum bulk specific
gravity
c. Binder content corresponding to median of designed limits of
percent air voids (Vv) usually 4%. The stability value, flow value and
VFA are checked with Marshall Mix Design Specification chart and
the optimum Binder content is determined.
Sometimes the Optimum Binder content is also taken as the
average of the Binder content corresponding to maximum unit
weight, maximum stability and at specific (i.e. 4 %) air voids.
The results should always be in the range as shown :-
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