Abstract
Pavement rutting is a major problem on heavily travelled flexible pavement specifically on climbing lanes. Reinforcement of Bituminous mix might be one of the possible remedies that can be considered to improve the performance of a pavement in terms of rutting resistance. It is thought that the addition of glass fibers to asphalt mixtures enhances material strength and fatigue resistance while adding ductility. Because of their excellent mechanical properties, glass fibers combined with SMA mix might offer an excellent potential for asphalt modification. This paper investigates some fundamental properties and rutting characteristics of glass fiber reinforced Stone Mastic Asphalt. The laboratory tests undertaken to evaluate the effect of the fiber content on the bituminous mixes comprise the indirect tensile test, creep test and resistance to rutting. Overall the inclusion glass fiber resulted in higher resilient modulus, higher resistance to permanent strain and higher resistance to rutting. Mix with 0.3% fiber content showed the highest performance. Good correlation was obtained between the laboratory tests parameters (stiffness and permanent strain) and rutting performance of reinforced mixes. The dynamic creep test was found to be more reliable test in evaluating the rutting performance of asphalt mixtures as compared to the IDT test, in addition the contribution of aggregates internal friction to the rut resistance was found to be more significant than mix cohesion.
