Effect of aggregate gradation and bitumen type on mechanical properties of semi-flexible asphalt mixtures

Semi-Flexible Asphalt (SFA) mixture is a wearing course in which Open-Graded Asphalt (OGA) mixes having air voids of 20–35% are grouted with cement mortar. The grout consists of cement, sand, superplasticizer, and water. In the present work, an effort was made to assess the effect of the Sand-Cement (S/C) ratio in determining the optimal grout proportions. Taguchi technique combined with Grey Relational Analysis was used to obtain the optimal grout proportion. The optimum grout was found to be the mixture prepared with an S/C ratio of 0.6, a water-to-cement (W/C) ratio of 0.40, and a polycarboxylic ether-based superplasticizer (SP) content of 0.75% by weight of cement. The SP content was the most influencing factor, while the S/C ratio was the second most influencing factor. To investigate the effect of aggregate gradation and bitumen type on the mechanical properties of SFA mixtures, a new aggregate gradation with neat and modified bitumen was used to prepare OGA mixtures and later grouted with optimal grout proportion. The Marshall Stability, compressive strength, Indirect Tensile Strength, Cantabro loss, fatigue resistance, moisture and Oil spillage resistance tests were conducted. The results showed that the SFA mixtures prepared with polymer-modified bitumen and the new aggregate gradation have better mechanical properties, implying the significance of bitumen type and aggregate gradation.