| The annual production of grave-bitume (GB) in the province of Quebec, of 682 757 tons represents 17% of the total production, just behind ESG-10 with 49,9%. Used as base layer, the grave-bitume can withstand easily the stresses from traffic. The mix design of GB requires two different aggregates stockpile. Also, the amount of binder needed is rather high, which makes those mixes expensive. The annual production of grave-bitume (GB) in the province of Quebec, of 682 757 tons represents 17% of the total production, just behind ESG-10 with 49,9%. Used as base layer, the grave-bitume can withstand easily the stresses from traffic. The mix design of GB requires two different aggregates stockpile. Also, the amount of binder needed is rather high, which makes those mixes expensive. In order to achieve this, different mixes with different filler content, from 9,5% to 15% were designed with a PG 64-28 bitumen. Those mixes were designed following the aggregates packing optimization used for the SMA-Cpack developed at ETS. Only two mixes were characterized, the EBHP-20_11% with 11% filler and the EBHP-20_15% with 15% filler. They were selected to study the influence of the amount of filler on the thermo-mechanical characteristics. The results have shown that the EBHP-20_11% can replace the GB-20 as a base layer mix in a flexible pavement because rutting resistance results from both mixes are similar, same goes for the thermal cracking. For the complex modulus, the value of the norm of the complex modulus at 10°C and 10 Hz are a bit higher for the EBHP compared to the GB-20. However, for fatigue resistance, the EBHP-20_11% has shown a fatigue resistance lower than the GB- 20. The EBHP-20_15% did however have better fatigue resistance than the GB-20, which if probably due to the higher amount of filler in the mix. |
