Experiments And Theoretical Modelling On Mechanics Behavior Of Carbon Nano Tube Reinforced Asphalt Mixtures

Carbon Nano-tube (CNT) is a perfect reinforcing material because of its unique structure and excellent performance in mechanics, electricity and chemistry. As a reinforced material of thermoplastic materials, CNT can improve the tensile strength, compressive strength, abrasion resistance and thermal stability of thermoplastic materials. So for there’s a lot of research on thermoplastic compound with CNT, but there’s few research on applying CNT to asphalt. This article is about multi-walled carbon nano-tube modified asphalt and related work, exploring how MWCNT improved the mechanics behavior of asphalt and asphalt binder. In this article author used a mechanical model to predict the effective elastic properties of asphalt binder and asphalt concrete as wellFirst of all, in this research author compared the processing technic of making MWCNT modified asphalt. In order to compare mechanic character of MWCNT modified asphalt with70#asphalt’s, physical tests include penetration and ball temperature were conducted. The results, include calculation of penetration index, softening-point, equivalent softening-point, equivalent brittle-point and plastic temperature range, shows the MWCNT can obviously improve the mechanic behavior of asphalt in both high-temperature and low-temperature.And then beams of MWCNT modified binder with pre-crack were made for the next test. In this step the fracture behavior were determined by the load-distortion curve obtained from the three-point bending test. In order to observe the crack of the MWCNT modified asphalt binder beams, the ESEM test were carried out.Further more, author used and improved a mechanic model to predict the effective elastic properties of MWCNT asphalt binder and asphalt in the previous study, describing the influence of MWCNT to asphalt concrete on the micro level.At last the result shows that the MWCNT can obviously improve performance of asphalt in both high-temperature and low-temperature and postponed the crack progress of beams in three-point bending test. The improved mechanic model can efficiently predict the effective elastic properties of asphalt binder and asphalt concrete, avoiding the influence of computation processing.