Decoupling oxidation and hardening in ageing: evaluation of bitumen-stone adhesion using different experimental methods

Lu Zhou; Gordon Airey; Yuqing Zhang; Chonghui Wang

doi:10.1080/14680629.2025.2486525

Decoupling oxidation and hardening in ageing: evaluation of bitumen-stone adhesion using different experimental methods

Lu Zhou^*, Gordon Airey, Yuqing Zhang, Chonghui Wang

^*Corresponding author for this work

Civil Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The adhesion at the bitumen-aggregate interface critically affects asphalt pavement resistance to moisture damage and cracking and is significantly influenced by the bitumen ageing process. Coupled oxidation and hardening during ageing lead to varying results across evaluation methods. This study employs direct tensile pull-off tests at iso-temperature and iso-stiffness conditions, contact angle tests, and boiling water tests to assess bitumen-stone adhesion at different ageing levels. Results indicate oxidation and hardening have dual impacts: short-term ageing initially enhances adhesion, while prolonged ageing reduces it significantly. Polymer-modified bitumen shows improved ageing resistance due to delayed polymer degradation. Iso-temperature tests fail to clearly differentiate oxidation from hardening effects, whereas iso-stiffness tests offer more accurate assessments by excluding physical hardening. Due to interactions between chemical and physical changes in bitumen, ageing evaluations vary by indices and binder type. A comprehensive assessment combining pull-off tensile tests, surface free energy analysis, and mixture-scale evaluations is recommended.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	734-750
Number of pages	17
Journal	Road Materials and Pavement Design
Volume	26
Issue number	sup1
Early online date	2 Apr 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/14680629.2025.2486525
Publication status	Published - 2 Apr 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Keywords

Adhesion properties
ageing effect
experimental evaluation
hardening effect

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10.1080/14680629.2025.2486525Licence: CC BY 4.0

Decoupling oxidation and hardening in ageing evaluation of bitumen-stone adhesion using different experimental methods
Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Final published version, 6.81 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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abstract = "The adhesion at the bitumen-aggregate interface critically affects asphalt pavement resistance to moisture damage and cracking and is significantly influenced by the bitumen ageing process. Coupled oxidation and hardening during ageing lead to varying results across evaluation methods. This study employs direct tensile pull-off tests at iso-temperature and iso-stiffness conditions, contact angle tests, and boiling water tests to assess bitumen-stone adhesion at different ageing levels. Results indicate oxidation and hardening have dual impacts: short-term ageing initially enhances adhesion, while prolonged ageing reduces it significantly. Polymer-modified bitumen shows improved ageing resistance due to delayed polymer degradation. Iso-temperature tests fail to clearly differentiate oxidation from hardening effects, whereas iso-stiffness tests offer more accurate assessments by excluding physical hardening. Due to interactions between chemical and physical changes in bitumen, ageing evaluations vary by indices and binder type. A comprehensive assessment combining pull-off tensile tests, surface free energy analysis, and mixture-scale evaluations is recommended.",

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AB - The adhesion at the bitumen-aggregate interface critically affects asphalt pavement resistance to moisture damage and cracking and is significantly influenced by the bitumen ageing process. Coupled oxidation and hardening during ageing lead to varying results across evaluation methods. This study employs direct tensile pull-off tests at iso-temperature and iso-stiffness conditions, contact angle tests, and boiling water tests to assess bitumen-stone adhesion at different ageing levels. Results indicate oxidation and hardening have dual impacts: short-term ageing initially enhances adhesion, while prolonged ageing reduces it significantly. Polymer-modified bitumen shows improved ageing resistance due to delayed polymer degradation. Iso-temperature tests fail to clearly differentiate oxidation from hardening effects, whereas iso-stiffness tests offer more accurate assessments by excluding physical hardening. Due to interactions between chemical and physical changes in bitumen, ageing evaluations vary by indices and binder type. A comprehensive assessment combining pull-off tensile tests, surface free energy analysis, and mixture-scale evaluations is recommended.

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Decoupling oxidation and hardening in ageing: evaluation of bitumen-stone adhesion using different experimental methods

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