Review of the Application of Microwave Heating Technology in Asphalt Pavement Self-Healing and De-icing

In the past decades, a large amount of research was conducted to investigate the application prospect of microwave heating technology in improving the efficiency of asphalt pavement self-healing and de-icing. This paper reviewed the achievements in this area. Firstly, the properties of asphalt concrete after microwave heating were summarized, including microwave sensitivity and heating uniformity. Then, the evaluation indicators and influence factors of the self-healing properties of the asphalt mixtures heated by microwave were reviewed. Finally, the application of microwave heating in asphalt pavement de-icing was explored. In addition, asphalt pavement aging due to microwave heating was also reviewed. It was found that microwave heating technology has good prospects in promoting asphalt pavement self-healing and de-icing. There are also some problems that should be studied in depth, such as the cost-effectiveness of microwave-sensitive additives (MSAs), the performance of the pavement with MSAs, mechanism-based self-healing performance indicators, and the aging of asphalt pavements under cycling microwave heating.