Masters Degrees (Civil Engineering)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (Civil Engineering) by browse.metadata.advisor "Bredenhann, Steph"

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    Age-related performance of typical seal binders in South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03) Engelbrecht, Francois; Jenkins, Kim; Bredenhann, Steph; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Civil Engineering.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The age-related performance of typical seal binders in South Africa was studied to understand the behaviour of the binders as it ages. The three main failure mechanisms for surfacing seals include surface cracking, ravelling and texture loss. These mechanisms shorten the life of the pavement exponentially. Various factors may be the cause of these failures. This study includes the analyses of the rate at which oxidation influences the performance of surfacing seals. Rheology was used to analyse the age-related performance of the selected seal binders. Low and high temperature testing was conducted in the laboratory at various ages such as RTFO and PAV (20hr, 40hr and 80hr) which includes short-term ageing and long-term ageing of a binder. Several ageing parameters were used to analyse the results of each seal binder. The South African Performance Grade Specification and the AASHTO M320 specification are established to set the required performance of asphalt binders. These specifications were used to compare the performance of surfacing seal binders to asphalt binders. Results showed that ageing influences the modification within surfacing seal binders. It appears that the performance of the elastic component in the modifier decreases as the binders age. The low temperature results show that the difference between the unmodified and modified binders are minimal. The high temperature results indicate that the highly modified binders perform well considering the influence of ageing.