Laboratory and Field Investigation of the Feasibility of Crumb Rubber Waste Application to Improve the Flexibility of Anti-Rutting Performance of Asphalt Pavement

Resistance of asphalt mix to low-temperature cracking and rutting at high temperature is very important to ensure the service performance of asphalt pavement under seasonal changes in temperature and loading. However, it is challenging to balance the improvement of such resistance by using additives, e.g., anti-rutting agent (ARA). This study focuses on improving the flexibility of anti-rutting asphalt mix by incorporating crumb rubber (CR) and ARA. The properties of the prepared modified asphalt mix were evaluated in the laboratory by performing wheel tracking, three-point bending, indirect tensile, and uniaxial compression tests. The experimental results showed that the dynamic stability of modified asphalt mix was significantly increased due to the addition of ARA and further improved by incorporating CR. The maximum bending strain at −10 °C was increased due to the contribution of CR. The results of indirect tensile strength and resilient modulus further indicated that the CR-modified anti-rutting mixture was more flexible. Moreover, the field observation and evaluation indicated that the CR-modified anti-rutting asphalt pavement met the standard requirements, better than normal asphalt mixture in many parameters. A conclusion can be made that incorporating CR in asphalt mixture prepared with ARA can improve pavement performance at both high and low in-service temperatures.