Resistance to Low Temperature Cracking of High Modulus Bituminous Binders and Mixtures

The increasing growth of traffic volume and loading makes it necessary to introduce new types of asphalt with improved performances. High modulus asphalt mixtures have been developed for this purpose. These are mixtures with a high stiffness bitumen and a high binder content. A possible drawback of these hypes of mixtures is the low temperature behaviour which might be less good as for traditional asphalt mixtures. In this paper we will focus on the low temperature behaviour of high modulus bituminous binders and asphalt mixtures. The low temperature performance of the bitumen is investigated with the bending beam rheometer (BBR). The low temperature behaviour of the high modulus asphalt mixture is investigated with the restrained cooling test (RCT). Both results are compared in order to investigate the correlation between binder and asphalt properties.