Utilisation of Recycled Concrete Aggregates for Sustainable Porous Asphalt Pavements

Abstract

The use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) for porous asphalts is a viable attempt towards waste management and sustainable conservation of natural resources. Installation of a porous asphalt wearing course is justified in highway pavements because it offers higher skid resistance, glare reduction, lesser traffic noise, reduction of hydroplaning, and mitigation of urban heat island phenomenon. The performance of porous asphalt mixtures containing 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% of coarse RCA as replacement for granite was studied and reported in this paper. The mixture containing 0% RCA was used as the control. The skid properties, permeability, water susceptibility and mechanical behaviour of the mixtures under various loading conditions were investigated. Blending granite and RCA in the porous asphalt mixture gave better Indirect Tensile Strength (ITS), rutting resistance, and impact strength indicators. The mixture with 60% RCA achieved desirable results in all tests. It exhibited the best performance based on its ITS and impact strength of 431 kPa and 380 J, respectively. These values were higher than the control by 3% and 30%, respectively. Utilisation of RCA in porous asphalt pavements is recommended based on the results of this study.

Keywords

• circular economy
• impact strength
• permeability
• rutting resistance
• recycling
• sustainability