Evaluation of the Cooling and Pavement Performance of Basic Oxygen Furnace Slag Used in Asphalt Mixture

Basic oxygen furnace slag (BOF) is widely used in road construction, but there is a lack of characteristics in different asphalt mixtures. This study investigates the properties of hot-mixed asphalt (HMA), containing stone mastic asphalt (SMA), porous asphalt (PA), and dense-graded BOF as a partial substitution for natural aggregates. The purpose of this study is to evaluate various BOF slag contents in the asphalt mixtures that would affect the cooling behavior after compaction. Asphalt mixture specimens contained 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% BOF slag, respectively, as coarse aggregate. Test results showed that BOF slag has a lipophilic property, so that it can be adsorbed by asphalt cement, thereby reducing the cost of asphalt. The stability value of all the asphalt mixtures increases with the proportion of BOF slag replacement. In addition, the voids in the mineral aggregate (VMA) value variable exhibited significant differences among asphalt mixtures, and could determine the deviation of the cooling trend of asphalt mixtures. Furthermore, it was found that the cooling procedure of the BOF slag used in dense-graded asphalt mixture takes about 100 min, and that the temperature tends to be moderate; however, it took about 120 min of cooling the SMA and PA mixture with BOF slag. In addition, the distribution of voids of the dense asphalt mixture was not uniform. This would result in various locations of inconsistent thermal energy temperature on asphalt mixtures.