Institute for Transportation

About the research

Incorporating recycled asphalt materials (RAM), including recycled asphalt pavements (RAP) and recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) in asphalt mixes is becoming a common practice in many states. There is a multitude of research that has addressed different aspects of RAP, including its impact on mixture properties. The use of recycled asphalt is primarily driven by economic and environmental reasons. Using RAM to replace virgin materials can lead to significant cost savings and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, which inspires the need to incorporate more RAM into asphalt mixes. However, concerns have arisen regarding using RAM with high virgin binder replacement contents due to instances of premature failure in some cases.

The goal of the project is to demonstrate the benefit of applying binder availability factors (BAFs), or other recycled binder availability approaches, to mixes containing RAM, based on field performance. This work is important to provide field validation of the findings from previous lab studies on recycled binder availability, and to further refine the concept of recycled binder availability in the design of high-RAM mixes based on the findings from the field studies, considering the effect of production variables, such as production temperature and silo storage.