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Rheological properties and polymer phase structure characterization of SBS/CR composite modified asphalt (CMA) binders

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Abstract

Crumb rubber (CR) content plays an important role in the rheological properties and polymer phase structure of styrene–butadiene–styrene (SBS) and crumb rubber (CR) composite modified asphalt (SBS/CR CMA) binders. To thoroughly understand the modified mechanisms and microstructures of polymers, the frequency sweep tests were employed to measure the mechanical parameters including dynamic shear modulus, phase angle, and dynamic viscosity within the linear viscoelastic domain, Sessile Drop test was conducted to obtain the contact angles which were used to calculate the surface free energy, and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM) test was applied to capture the images of polymer phase. According to the time–temperature superposition principle (TTSP), the master curves of dynamic shear modulus, phase angle, and dynamic viscosity were constructed, respectively. Therefore, the mechanical properties, zero shear viscosity (ZSV), and flow activation energy were determined to be analyzed for evaluation of CR content. The addition of the CR modifier improves the ZSV of binders, and SBS/CR-35 owns the largest value of ZSV showing the best flow resistance. What’s more, SBS/CR-35 presents a lower temperature dependence under higher loading frequencies because of the smallest flow activation energy and results in the highest surface free energy (SFE). Among the five binders, SBS/CR-35 exhibits the best mechanical performance. Based on the reconstruction of the polymer phase, the statistical analysis revealed that the majority of SBS particles (50.15%) are formed of 0.3 μm3 in volume size and the majority of CR particles are 2.5 μm3 in all SBS/CR CMA binders. All polymer particles are mainly distributed within the volume range of 0.3 μm3 to 40 μm3.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52078130, No. 51778140), Technology Research and Development Program of China State Railway Group Co., Ltd (No. P2019G030), the Scientific Research Foundation of Graduate School of Southeast University (No. YBPY2158), and China Scholarship Council program (No. 202106090047).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Transportation, Southeast University, #2 Southeast University Road, Nanjing, 211189, People’s Republic of China

    Chenguang Shi, You Wu, Yunhong Yu, Houzhi Wang & Jun Yang

  2. National Demonstration Center for Experimental Road and Traffic Engineering Education (Southeast University), Southeast University, #2 Southeast University Road, Nanjing, 211189, People’s Republic of China

    Chenguang Shi, You Wu, Yunhong Yu, Houzhi Wang & Jun Yang

  3. Institute of Highway Engineering (ISAC), RWTH Aachen University, Mies-Van-Der-Rohe-Straße 1, 52074, Aachen, Germany

    Tianling Wang

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Contributions

CS: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing-original draft, Visualization. YW: Writing-review & editing, Formal analysis. TW: Data curation. YY: Writing-original draft. HW: Visualization JY: Writing-review & editing, Funding acquisition, Resources, Supervision.

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Shi, C., Wu, Y., Wang, T. et al. Rheological properties and polymer phase structure characterization of SBS/CR composite modified asphalt (CMA) binders. Mater Struct 56, 33 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-023-02122-y

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