Abstract
PURPOSES : The study objective was to evaluate rheology and physical properties of SBS-modified warm-mix asphalt (WMA) binders in comparison with hot-mix asphalt (HMA) binders. METHODS : Four different SBS polymers were used to prepare polymer-modified asphalt (PMA) binders, and three different warm-mix additives (WAD) were used to prepare a total of 12 WMA PMA binders. The kinematic viscosity was measured at 115, $135^{\circ}C$. The PG was determined using DSR and BBR. The pass/fail (P/F) temperatures for high and low PG grading were evaluated for HMA PMA and WMA PMA binders. RESULTS : PG 76-22 binders could be prepared by modifying the base binder (PG 64-22) using 4.5 wt% of SBS. The kinematic viscosity (KV) of SBS PMA was increased by 3 times higher than that of base asphalt. The SBS PMA with WAD showed 10% lower KV than that of the normal SBS PMA at $115^{\circ}C$ The high P/F temperatures showed almost no difference between HMA PMA and WMA PMA binders. The high P/F temperature showed very high correlations with KV ($R^2$ > 0.97). The result of SBS modification caused increase of low P/F temperature by $2.7^{\circ}C$ on average. CONCLUSIONS : Since the PMA with WAD showed 10% lower KV than normal (HMA) PMA at $115^{\circ}C$, reducing PMA mixture temperature down to a WMA level was possible in this study. The higher KV binders showed the higher P/F temperature. There was almost no change in high P/F temperature due to the use of WAD. The SBS PMA, showing an increased low P/F temperature, might show somewhat poorer performance at low-temperature, even though the lower PG grade was staying at the same level, i.e., $-22^{\circ}C$.
