PURPOSES : The purpose of this study is to examine the manufacturing method for emulsified asphalt and its bond performance by analyzing the properties of the emulsifier used to produce cold recycled asphalt mixtures.
METHODS: In this study, four types of slow-setting cationic emulsifiers, a microsurfacing emulsifier, and six types of nonionic emulsifiers were used to manufacture emulsified asphalt. Because each emulsifier requires its own unique effective dose to provide the best performance, the optimum asphalt content for each effective dose was determined. Then, the optimum asphalt content for the emulsified asphalt mixture was determined by the tests to check its basic physical properties. By using the determined optimum content, asphalt mixtures were manufactured and dynamic immersion and tensile strength tests were conducted on the mixtures to analyze the influence of the emulsifier on the physical properties of the mixtures.
RESULTS : The dynamic immersion test results showed a coating ratio of 54-85%, which is considerably higher than that of using ordinary straight asphalt. The tensile strength test yielded noncompliant values less than 0.4 N/mm, which is the standard requirement for dry indirect tensile strength. The correlation analysis between the dynamic immersion and tensile strength ratio tests showed very high correlation of 0.78. The correlation between the emulsifier content and water resistance performance was low, between -0.55 and -0.24.
CONCLUSIONS : While the storage stability improves with increasing emulsifier, the effectiveness proportional to the increase is weaker as the emulsifier increases. The performance testing of asphalt residues before and after manufacturing the emulsified asphalt showed no significant change. It is proved that the emulsified asphalt maintains high coating resistance according to the dynamic immersion test results. In addition, according to the results of tensile strength ratio, cold recycled asphalt mixtures manufactured by the materials normally and commercially used are not compliant with the national standard specification; thus, additional effective materials will be needed for quality compliance. In conclusion, it is evident that the dynamic immersion and tensile strength ratio tests have good correlation, but the quantity of emulsifiers used is not related to the level of moisture resistance.