Influence of Lime and Evotherm® on the Moisture resistance of

bituminous mixes.

ABSTRACT: Moisture damage is defined as loss of mechanical characteristics of material

resulting from the presence of water in the bituminous mixtures. This phenomenon
aggravates various distresses causing loss of assets in the pavement maintenance and
rehabilitation. The most traditional technique adopted to mitigate moisture damage is addition
of the additives in bituminous mixes. This study evaluates the use of hydrated lime and
Evotherm® on the moisture susceptibility of the bituminous mixes. Hydrated lime is used as
antistripping agent which changes the surface chemistry of the aggregate and results in the
stronger adhesion between aggregate and binder. Evotherm® is a WMA additive which
reduces the viscosity of the binder and increases the workability at lower temperatures. This
study focuses on evaluating the combined effect of temperature and pressure. The mix
specimen were prepared using 100 mm diameter mould using viscosity grade (VG-30)
bitumen to the targeted air voids of 7±0.5%. Two different conditioning process i.e.
AASHTO T-283 (24 hr. Freeze-thaw effect) and through Moisture Induced Sensitivity Tester
(MIST). Moisture susceptibility was conducted by comparing the results of Indirect Tensile
Strength (ITS) test and Retained Marshall Stability (RMS) of the mixtures blended with
additives with the control mix. The results show that there was marked increase in the
performance of the mixtures with the additives.

1. Introduction 2012). Moisture damage may result in

stripping, ravelling, fatigue damage and
Moisture damage is the degradation of
permanent deformation. In other words,
pavement structure due to loss of its
moisture damage of the pavement is not a
mechanical properties due to presence of
distress by itself but represents a
moisture in its structure. Moisture damage
conditioning process after which several
was first recognized in the early 1930s,
distresses may occur individually or
however; it was not until the 1960s that
simultaneously.
moisture damage was recognized as a
serious problem. Moisture damage can be Moisture damage can be generally
defined as loss of strength and durability classified into two mechanisms: (a) loss
in bituminous mixtures caused by of adhesion (b) loss of cohesion. The loss
presence of water (Kumar and Anand of adhesion is due to water entering and
stripping away the bitumen film. The loss testing have proved that hydrated lime not
of cohesion is due to softening of the only improves the composition but
bituminous concrete mass. Cohesive and substantially improves low temperature
adhesive failure occurs due to the nature fracture toughness without reducing the
of the mastic and relative thickness of the ability to dissipate energy through
mastic around the coarse and fine relaxation. Further, hydrated lime acts as
aggregates. Cheng et al. (2002) used filler and reacts with bitumen resulting in
micromechanics to assess the thickness of some of the beneficial mechanisms, in
the bitumen film at which the adhesive terms of strength. It has been widely
failure gives way to cohesive failure. The observed that there are also benefits of the
thickness that differentiates these two reduced susceptibility to age hardening
types of failures is dependent on the and the improved moisture resistance
rheology of the bitumen, the amount of (Behiry, 2013)
damage the bitumen can withstand prior
Several researchers have investigated the
to failure, rate of loading and the
changes in surface energy of the
temperature at the time of testing.
aggregate and binder interface to evaluate
In order to evaluate fundamental the moisture damage. Difference between
properties of related to moisture damage the surface free energy of aggregate-
several works has been done to evaluate binder and water-aggregate causes
the effect of addition of additives and stripping (Nejad et al., 2013).
modifiers to reduce the moisture
WMA technology is evolved with
susceptibility (Huang et al., 2005).
reducing the production or mixing
Hydrated lime was found one such
temperature of the bituminous mixes up to
antistripping additive which increases the
40° C by the adding additives to the
adhesive strength of the bituminous
conventional HMA mixes. The addition
mixes. There are several methods to add
of warm mix additive reduces the
hydrated lime such as addition of dry lime
viscosity of the bitumen at lower
to dry aggregate, application of dry lime
temperature and shows similar resistance
to wet aggregates, using lime slurry etc.
to low temperature cracking and water
The addition of dry lime to the binder was
resistance as that of HMA (Rohith and
found beneficial than treating the
Ranjitha, 2013). Manjunath et al. (2014)
aggregate with lime slurry (Kim et al.,
compared the Marshall properties of
2008). The previous laboratory and field
WMA produced with Evotherm® and
Cecabase RT®. They found that the
Evotherm® dose of 0.4% by weight of
bitumen was found beneficial
Bituminous Concrete Grade 2. They also
concluded that Marshall properties were
improved for WMA with additives.
The purpose of any test method is to
reproduce the moisture damage that will
occur in bituminous mixtures (Kumar and
Anand 2012). Zofka et al. (2014) used
the MIST conditioning to evaluate the
stripping potential in bituminous material.
The results showed comparable results
between MIST conditioning
AASHTO-T283 for the HMA samples but
similar comparison was not valid for the
tested WMA samples. Pinkham et al.
(2010) evaluated the effect of moisture
induced stress tester (MIST) for the
moisture damage in bitumen pavements.
It had been determined that the MIST
conditioning process does cause moisture
damage to the samples in a manner that
mimics hydraulic scouring. Chen and
Huang (2008) conditioned bituminous
mixtures by four different methods: one
cycle of freeze-thaw, two cycles of freeze-
thaw, 500 and 1000 cycles with MIST.
They reported that increasing freeze-thaw
or MIST cycles would increase moisture
damage in HMA mixtures. Tarefder and
Ahmad (2014) come with conclusion that
MIST and the AASHTO test method
show a reduction in TSR value, which
means moisture damage occurred during
for both conditioning methods. However,
MIST showed a poor correlation, whereas
the AASHTO test method showed a fair
correlation between permeability and
TSR.
In this study, attempt was made to study
the effect of adding additives and
different conditioning process over
resistance to moisture susceptibility has
been studied. Following are the objectives
of the study:
and
i. To evaluate the effect of Lime and
Evotherm® on moisture resistance of
bituminous mixes.
ii. To evaluate the effect of conditioning
process (a) Moisture induced
sensitivity tester (MIST) and (b)
AASHTO-T283; on the moisture
susceptibility of bituminous mixes.
2. Experimental Materials and Test
Procedure
In this study mixes were prepared using
locally available granite as aggregate (as
course, fine and filler fraction) obtained
from single source and test results are
shown in Table 1. Mixes are prepared
bituminous concrete grading-II as shown
in figure 1. VG-30 grade bitumen is used
and the test results are shown in Table 2.
 Table 1. Properties of aggregate
S. No. Property Test result Specifications [??]
Max. 5% passing 0.075
1 Cleanliness 3.90%
mm sieve
Combined flakiness and
2 27% Max. 35%
elongation index
3 Los Angeles abrasion value 21.89% Max. 30%
4 Aggregate impact value 15.82% Max. 24%
5 Water absorption 0.60% Max. 2%
Retained coating of bitumen over
6 99% Min. 95%
aggregates

Figure 1. Aggregate gradation of bituminous concrete grading II

Table 2. Properties of bitumen

S. No. Property Test result Specifications [??]

1 Penetration at 25 °C, 0.1 mm 66 Min. 45
2 Softening point, °C 50.5 Min. 47
3 Flash point, °C 260 Min. 220
4 Solubility in trichloroethylene, % 99 Min. 99
 Selection of material
(Bituminous concrete Grading-2 and VG-30)

Determinationof
Determination of Optimum
Optimum Binder
Bindercontent
content
ituminous concrete Grading-1 and VG-30

Type of mixtures
Without additive With additive

Control Mix With Lime With Evotherm

Selection of Air voids (7±0.5)

Freeze and Thaw Effect
Dry set of samples
MIST conditioning at 3500
cycles
(40° C, 50° C, 60° C)
(40 psi (274 kPa), 50 psi
(345 kPa), 60 psi (414
kPa))

Retained Marshall
Stability Test
Indirect tensile
strength test

Analysis of Results

Figure 2. Test plan of the study

Test Plan Evotherm®. Lime added is as 2% of the

Figure 2 illustrates the test plan adopted weight of the aggregate and Evotherm® as

for the study which includes determination 0.4% of the optimum binder content. The

of optimum binder content, types of mixes Marshall samples are prepared for the

such as control mix without any additive target air voids of 7±0.5%. This samples

and mixes blended with Lime and are conditioned using MIST (Moisture
induced sensitivity tester) and Freeze thaw
cycle based on AASHTO T-283 protocol.
This conditioned samples are tested for
their retained Marshall stability and
retained tensile strength, for these average
of three samples is taken for each
conditioning.
AASHTO T-283 (24 hr Freeze- Thaw
effect):
AASHTO T-283 test is a common method
followed in India to evaluate the moisture
susceptibility of the bituminous mixes in
which the freeze and thaw effect is
followed to condition the samples.
Followed by saturation of the sample by
applying a partial vacuum such as 70 kPa
or 525 mm Hg for a short time such as 5 to
10 min. Determine the degree of saturation
by dividing the volume of the absorbed
water by the volume of air voids and
express the result as a percentage. The
degree of saturation between 55 to 80%
can be used. If the degree of saturation is
less than 55%, repeat the procedure
beginning with using a slightly higher
partial vacuum. If the degree of saturation
is more than 80%, the specimen has been
damaged and is discarded. For specimens
with 70 to 80 percent saturation, the
samples are each wrapped with a plastic
film and placed in a plastic bag containing
10 ± 0.5 mL of water and sealed. The
plastic bags are placed in a freezer at a
temperature of -18 ± 3°C for 24 ± 1 hours.
Place the specimens in a water bath
maintained at 60 ± 1.0 ºC for 24 hours. As
soon as the specimens are placed in the
water bath, the plastic bag and film is
removed from each specimen. The
samples subjected to condition are
removed from the water bath and placed in
water bath maintained at 25 ± 0.5 ºC for 2
hours.
Conditioning through Moisture Induced
Sensitivity tester (MIST):
Proper testing and screening of HMA
mixes for moisture susceptibility is crucial
requirement for designing today’s high-
performing and longer-lasting pavements.
Moisture Induced Stress Tester is designed
to simulate HMA pavement stripping
mechanisms, which are due to water and
repeated traffic loading.
MIST uses the cyclic pore pressure and
temperature for the evaluation of the
damage to the HMA pavements, we need
to fix the cycles, pressure and temperature
for the study. The number of cycles where
fixed to 3500 which is the default value
with varying temperature and pressure.
The temperature is varied from 40⁰ C to
60⁰ C at the interval of 10⁰ C. In similar
manner pressure is varied from 40 psi
(275.79 kPa) to 60 psi (413.69 kPa) at
interval of 10 psi. The specimen after
conditioning are subjected to indirect
tensile strength and Marshall Stability test will have better resistance to moisture
after all the water is drained out from the damage. At the same time, mixtures that
conditioned specimen. Table 3 shows test are able to tolerate higher strain prior to
matrix for sample preparation. failure are more likely to have better
resistance to environmental cracking
Table 3: Test matrix for sample
(Ameri et al., 2013).
preparation

Conditioning Process Description

7% air voids

RMS ITS
Dry 3 3
Freeze and Thaw effect 0 3
P40 3 3
T40⁰ C P50 3 3
P60 3 3
P40 3 3
MIST T50⁰ C P50 3 3
P60 3 3 Figure 3 Variation of Tensile Strength
P40 3 3 Ratio at 60⁰ C and different pressure of
T60⁰ C P50 3 3
MIST conditioning for control mix.
P60 3 3
Total 30 33 As stated by Varveri et. al (2014), the
tensile strength ratio decreases with the
Results and discussions increase in the temperature and pressure.
As seen from the figure 3, there was
The ITS and TSR tests are often used to
decrease in the tensile strength ratio when
evaluate the moisture susceptibility of an
the samples were subjected to conditioning
asphalt mixture. Tensile strength ratio
and all the samples except first failed to
(TSR) was used to predict the moisture
maintain 80% tensile strength ratio as
susceptibility of the mixtures. According
specified by ASTM D 6931.
to previous researchers a TSR of 0.8 or
above has typically been utilized as a As seen from figure 4, when Evotherm® is
minimum acceptable value for hot mix added as an additive it shows an increased
asphalt. The same guideline is also being in the retained tensile strength and all the
followed in MoRTH (2013). A higher ITS samples. This is because Evotherm®
value typically indicate that the mixture reduces the contact angles and interfacial
energies which increases the bonds in strength ratio as specified by Shu et al.
between the aggregate and bitumen (2012). This is because when the samples
(Ghabchi et al. 2013). are subjected to increasing pressure the
samples becomes loose and lost its
stiffness which make it unable to provide
the expected resistance and fails earlier.
Damage is expected to occur inside the
samples in the form of washing out of
binders, loosening the bond between
aggregate and binder due to the cyclic
water pressure. (Islam and Tarefder 2014).

Figure 4 Variation of Tensile Strength

Ratio at 50⁰ C and different pressure of
MIST conditioning for mix with
Evotherm®.

Figure 6 Comparision of tensile strength

ratio of mixes blended with different
additives at 40° C.

Figure 6 illustrates that the addition of

Figure 5 Variation of Tensile Strength
Ratio at 40⁰ C and different pressure of
MIST conditioning for mix with Lime.
When samples with lime as additive are
subjected to conditioning showed decrease
additives proved beneficial in increasing
the tensile strength ratio than the mixes
without additives.
The Retained Marshall Stability (RMS)
index can be used to measure the
resistance of mixtures to moisture damage
of the mix being tested.
 Figure 9. Variation of Retained Marshall
Figure 7. Variation of Retained Marshall
Stability at 60 psi (414 kPa) and different
Stability at 60 psi (414 kPa) and different
temperatures of MIST conditioning for
temperatures of MIST conditioning for
Lime.
control mix.

The performance of bituminous mixes is

very much depended on the temperature to
which it is subjected. The results shows
that decrease in stability value is more at
higher temperature. This is because the
mastic loose it stiffness when subjected to
higher temperature.

The hydrophilic nature of the bituminous

mixes is due to presence of -OH group due
to which aggregate have more affinity
towards water than bitumen (Cheng et al.
2011). When Evotherm® as a WMA
additive is added to the bituminous mixes
it creates a molecular level of hydrophobic
zone which restricts the entry of water,
Figure 8. Variation of Retained Marshall
thus; ensures excellent bonding between
Stability at 40 psi (276 kPa) and different
aggregates and bitumen. When hydrated
temperatures of MIST conditioning for
lime is used an anti-stripping agent, it react
Evotherm®.
with highly polar molecules to inhibit the
formation of water-soluble soaps that
promote stripping. When those molecules
react with hydrated lime, they form
insoluble salts that no longer attract water
(Ameri et al. 2013).