USE OF WASTE ENGINE OIL FOR REJUVENATION OF AGED ASPHALT BINDER

Abstract

The lifespan of an asphalt layer is affected by the ageing of bitumen. Therefore, it is crucial to have established techniques for anticipating the pavement's behaviour over time. Bitumen gradually loses its favourable characteristics during its service period due to constant exposure to environment and traffic. Bitumen must be exposed to external influences, such as oxidation, evaporation, and exudation of bitumen components, leading to hardness of the bitumen, in order to assess changes of binder qualities with regard to time. In the present study one rejuvenator (WEO) from two different sources i.e., RK-1 (WEO-RK-1) and RK 2 (WEO-RK-2) are obtained and used, to check for the rejuvenation of aged VG30 bitumen at different ageing conditions simulated in lab. The changes in conventional and rheological properties of VG30 with ageing and rejuvenation with different percentages of RK-1 and RK-2 before and after ageing are studied. The rheological properties of binders in terms of their complex modulus (G*) which depicts stiffness and overall resistance to deformation, storage modulus (G'= G*.cos 𝛿) which measures energy stored during a loading cycle, loss modulus (G"=G*.sin 𝛿) which measures the energy dissipated during a loading cycle and phase angle (𝛿), measures the viscoelastic character of bitumen are studied using Anton Par Dynamic Shear Rheometer. The chemical properties are also analysed by performing FTIR of the samples and their carbonyl index is studied before and after ageing and rejuvenation. Conventional tests show hardening of bitumen due to aging and decrease in viscosity due to addition of rejuvenator. It is observed that WEO performs good and is able to rejuvenate less aged binder, but it is not a good rejuvenator for highly aged binder as in our study trials up to 50% was made for PAV60 but rejuvenation was not successful.