Laboratory Characterization of Asphalt Mixes of SPS-1 Sections on US281

ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of comprehensive laboratory characterization of the premature rutted specific pavement studies-1 (SPS-1) sections on US281 in south Texas. It was soon found that it was the undocumented change in aggregate type from the limestone to gravel screenings and too much asphalt binder that caused the deeply premature rutting. As a follow-up study, the extensive laboratory tests on those cores were further conducted to establish which of the available laboratory test procedures could match the observed field performance. It was determined that both uniaxial Repeated Simple Shear Test at Constant Height and repeated load test could correctly rank the rutting performance of asphalt mixes. For the wheel tracking tests, the Asphalt Pavement Analyzer performed better than Hamburg Wheel Tracking Test, but both failed to differentiate between the bad and good mixes in this case. The moduli at high temperature, including axial dynamic modulus, axial resilient modulus, and shear resilient modulus, could screen out the bad mixes. However, except for shear resilient modulus, others failed to further differentiate the performance of mixes in each good or bad group.