Study of the bitumen aging effects on the rheological properties and fatigue behavior

A study of bitumen aging effects on the rheological properties and fatigue behavior is carried out on five polymer modified bitumen provided by an oil company. Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR), is used to perform advanced experimental investigation. It allows practicing frequency sweep tests, fatigue tests and time sweep tests. Polymer modified bitumen with different percentage of SBS with or without the presence of crumb rubber are tested before and after short and long aging processes. Master curves were generated based on frequency sweep tests data, they are studied, and a comparison was conducted between each bitumen before and after aging. In this thesis, the DSR is presented, as well as the testing procedure and the tested materials. A fatigue life analysis of the results, based on the use of two different criteria, the first criterion is classically used: it consists in defining the failure as a 50% loss of the initial stiffness. The other criteria based on dissipated energy data. This thesis provides results which show the effects of several factors on fatigue and healing response such as bitumen type, ageing, the presence of rubber and polymer modification.