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Abstract: The quality of cold in-place recycling (CIR) is strongly dependent on the capability of proper laboratory investigation and design,
and quality control during construction. The objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of the first major foamed asphalt CIR recycled
layer in India, laid on a national highway in India. A nonnuclear density gauge (NNDG) and a portable seismic properties analyzer (PSPA)
were utilized to determine the density and stiffness of the foamed asphalt recycled layer. In addition, cores and material samples from the
recycled layer were also tested in the laboratory for density and stiffness using dynamic modulus tests and the seismic method. The results of
tests were related to material properties and critical factors influencing the performance-related properties were identified. Comparisons
between laboratory and field sample data were made. Foaming temperature and gradation control of crusher dust were identified as param-
eters requiring tight control to achieve the required quality. The detrimental effects of excess blending of cement were also revealed. The
NNDG and the PSPA were found to be capable of identifying poor quality areas both in midsections and at joints, and to be capable of
monitoring the quality of recycled layer. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0000673. © 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Foam asphalt; Recycling; Nondestructive testing; Portable seismic properties analyzer.
graded 10 (VG 10) asphalt binder was used in the mix, with a
foaming temperature of 180°C and 6% foaming water content. The
optimum moisture content was determined to be 6.5%.
The sequence of construction in the field consisted of spreading
the materials to be blended with the RAP (crusher dust and cement)
on the pavement surface, foaming and blending and finally, com-
paction. After the initial trials showed variability in the quantity of
the crusher dust (spread with a grader), a paver was used for the
purpose of achieving better process control. A cement spreader was
used throughout the project to spread the dry cement. The perfor-
mance of the equipment showed a dosing variability of up to 2x the
stipulated quantity. This was attributed to the high fineness content
Fig. 1. Location of the project (length: 64.8 km) (map data © 2014 of the filler [ordinary portland cement (OPC) grade 53].
Google) The lack of the in-built heating arrangement in the bulk asphalt
tanker used in the recycling train led to a drop in foaming temper-
atures down to 150°C in some cases, compared with the design
in-place recycling using foamed bitumen to rehabilitate the existing requirement of 180°C. A Wirtgen WR2400 (Wirtgen, Windhagen,
four lanes of the project road where the pavement showed distress. Germany) recycler was used in the project.
To achieve the final base course layer thickness of 200 mm
Site Inspection and Pavement Condition Assessment (required to match the newly constructed adjacent lane), 20% of
the recycled layer material was required to be removed by a grader.
The site was inspected and cores were taken from different chai- The lane-wise grading of this high quantity of material ideally
nages, where the pavement had shown extensive top down cracks required two graders in tandem, which would have ensured that the
and distress (Fig. 1). To verify the nature of the cracking in the final profile was achieved before the stiffening of the recycled layer.
pavement, a visual inspection of the cores was done. The cores re- The process was however slowed down by the presence of only one
vealed top down cracking and were found to be restricted only to grader with a blade width of 2.5 m. This led to compaction and
the hot mix asphalt (HMA) layer. The depth of the cracks varied profile correction being carried out for up to 5–6 h after recycling,
from 60 to 80 mm from the top (Fig. 2). The existing pavement which most likely resulted in stiffening of the recycled layer and
consisted of 40-mm bituminous concrete (BC) and 160-mm dense impeded adequate compaction.
bituminous macadam (DBM), laid in two layers of 80 mm thick- Stretches of the recycled pavement (before the application of the
ness. Cold in-place recycling was selected to address the various overlay) was opened to traffic at differing time periods after the
distresses of rutting, shoving, and cracking observed in the existing
final compaction, without the use of any proof rolling. No standard
pavement.
test method was available to ascertain whether adequate strength
had been achieved before letting traffic ply on the freshly con-
Sample Collection and Properties of Reclaimed structed stretch. Finally, the application of the HMA overlay, which
Asphalt Pavements is recommended to be completed by the end of 2–4 weeks after
The reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) material was collected recycling (TG 2, Asphalt Academy 2009) was delayed for up to
using milling machines from the longest stretch in the job to obtain 12 weeks in certain cases. This exposed the recycled layer to traffic
representative materials for the mix design. However, according to without the protection of a wearing course for 8 weeks longer than
existing technical guidelines (Asphalt Academy 2009), the sample recommended. The field laboratory of the construction agency
can be collected from any homogeneous stretch having uniform made a dry recycler pass after spreading of the crusher dust and
pavement composition, as bitumen stabilized material (BSM) is cement and carried out gradation of the blend to verify the correct
not oversensitive material, small variability in untreated material proportioning of the constituents; that is, the RAP, crusher dust, and
will not significantly affect the strength achieved through treatment. cement. This method was used instead of measuring individual
The characterization of RAP was carried out by conducting the constituents using tray tests, which require the continuous presence
following tests: of the quality control (QC) team at the construction site. However,
• Wet sieve analysis to determine the grading [ASTM D422 the validation of this process in the laboratory revealed that the
(ASTM 2007)] in situ moisture has a dominant effect on the measured percentage
• Atterberg limits to determine the plasticity index [ASTM D4318 of fines passing through a 0.075 mm sieve. The presence of
(ASTM 2010)] moisture leads to the cement forming agglomerates with the fines
• Moisture/density relationship [AASHTO T-180 (AASHTO in the RAP and crusher dust. A reduction of up to 40% in the fines
1995)] was observed due to this phenomenon in a controlled test in the
Fig. 2. Cracking in existing roadway, core from existing roadway, and PSPA testing on recycled base course (images by Dhiraj Minotra)
laboratory when 2.5% of water of the RAP by weight was added to The higher moisture content and air voids of the foamed asphalt
simulate the effect of the in situ moisture. before final compaction strongly influences the dielectric constant
of the material, which directly impacts the NNDG measurements.
After the completion of the initial compaction by the soil compac-
NNDG Data tor, the NNDG was used to take density measurements across a
given cross section. This process resulted in density measurements
The use of the PaveTracker Plus NNDG (Troxler Electronic of the material that were higher than the expected range. It is
Laboratories, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) enabled
anticipated that this is due to the high moisture content and air
the collection and analysis of a high volume of data, which is
not feasible by sand replacement tests and core extraction. The de- voids. However, the sensitivity of the NNDG was adequate to iden-
vice was calibrated using modified Marshall Laboratory samples in tify the locations of inadequate compaction at the longitudinal con-
the laboratory. The PaveTracker, exhibited high repeatability and struction joints at 2.4 and 6 m offset from the median. Ideally, the
was sensitive to measurements taken along different orientations. area should be reworked at the joints and the density measurements
Fig. 3. Gradation limits as per TG2 (data from Asphalt Academy 2009)
and Design blend. Note: RAP Chennai TADA represents the gradation
of the milled material
Fig. 5. Density at different offsets from median for different compac-
tion passes
taken again. Recycling was conducted through four recycler passes Transverse construction joints at the junction of the end of a con-
structed section and the commencement of a new section require
as follows: Pass 1: 0–2.3 m; Pass 2: 2.3–4.6 m; Pass 3: 4.6–6.9 m;
particular attention to avoid low densities. Measurements were
Pass 4: 6.2–8.5 m (recycled aligned to the edge of pass 4). taken by the NNDG on either side of different transverse joints
The variability in compaction along each recycled pass is at six offsets, each at an interval of 1.2 m (Fig. 6). These measure-
expected to be lower than the variability across the cross section ments show cross sections with low density on the side of the
due to the compaction sequence typically followed in construction transverse joint toward which work commenced. This may be
sites. In order to evaluate the sensitivity of the NNDG to detect a attributable to the tendency to avoid reversing the soil compactor
possibility of raveling, a comparison of a raveled stretch (raveling
observed in approximately 20% of the area) was carried out with an
adjacent intact stretch of 50 m. Measurements were taken in the
middle of the recycler pass at 1.2 and 3.6 m offset from median
to avoid the influence of longitudinal construction joints (Fig. 4).
The higher coefficient of variation (COV) of the measured values in
the raveled section (Table 1) gives an indication of the poor quality
of compaction. The poor performance of the raveled section is,
however, indiscernible from the individual or average values of
density readings. Ideally, the process parameters must be recorded
during execution. This information, in conjunction with NNDG
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Distance from the median, m
23105 23160 25050 23950
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with sheep foot shoes to the edge of the transverse joint, to avoid
roller marks on the previous day’s work. There is a need to plan the Fig. 8. NNDG measurements
compaction sequence at such locations and verify the quality of
work done with NDT to avoid such segregation.
were collected across each cross section at offsets of 0.4 m from
the median. The data were plotted after reducing all values to a
Portable Seismic Properties Analyzer Data common temperature of 25°C. An evaluation of moduli at different
The PSPA rapidly measures seismic modulus via ultrasonic surface cross sections was conducted to assess the quality of the different
waves (USW). The PSPA was developed to provide a means for sections. Fig. 7 shows the average modulus of each recycler pass at
estimating the in situ seismic modulus of portland cement concrete different offset from the median, and Table 2 provides a summary
(PCC) and asphalt concrete (AC) pavement (Bell 2006). Its perfor- of observation.
mance in foamed asphalt is affected due to the material hetero-
geneity and high air void content.
The linear relationship suggested by Li and Nazarian (1994) can Correlation between NNDG Measurements and
be used for adjusting the modulus of HMA to a reference temper- PSPA Data
ature of 77°F (25°C). The pavement temperatures at which the data
were collected varied between 30 to 48°C. Variability of PSPA in The NNDG measurements were taken in longitudinal (0° to road
HMA is less than 3% when repeat measurements are made without alignment) and perpendicular (90° to road alignment) orientation at
moving the device and around 7% when the device is moved within the same locations where the PSPA measurements were taken at
a small area (Celaya et al. 2006). The data collected during this different cross sections. The cross sections for which the PSPA data
study indicates that a higher variability is expected in a foamed exhibited high precision (23,160 and 25,050 km) showed high cor-
asphalt layer with material heterogeneity and high air void content relation between the NNDG readings in the longitudinal and
(Xu and Hao 2012). The COV of the measurements at the core perpendicular orientation (Fig. 8). The cross section at 23,950 km,
locations varied from low to high even when the instrument read- which is characterized by large variation in modulus values, is also
ings at each location were taken without moving the device. characterized by poor correlation between the NNDG measure-
The PSPA was deployed in the field for collection of data at ments in the longitudinal and perpendicular orientation. Since the
different cross sections along the project stretch between 23,100 NNDG is capable of instantaneous measurements and has very
to 31,500 km at periods between 2 and 6 weeks after construction. minimal restrictions on the locations where the data can be col-
The problems of traffic control permitted the recording of only lected, it shows promise as a usable QC tool in the field. However,
one reading in longitudinal orientation and one in transverse the density measurements were unable to give an indication of the
orientation at each point measured in this study. The PSPA data bias of the moduli values.
1 3925 11.23 2179 18.52 1683 18.06 1031 19.64 2912.1 22.86 1504.1 23.17 2388 9.67 322.69 23.11
0.5 3716 10.24 2011 17.76 1514 16.46 886 17.86 2504.3 22.54 1250.3 21.50 2043 9.61 273.88 21.26
0.2 3417 10.24 1780 17.46 1273 16.33 724 17.22 2026.7 21.57 973.28 20.12 1611 9.62 223.05 18.52
0.1 3220 12.89 1634 20.11 1112 18.73 621 18.91 1721 23.66 782.49 22.41 Not tested 195.31 19.12
0.01 2410 14.37 1191 20.99 668 18.37 394 16.37 894.50 24.34 369.43 21.7 144.67 14.4
Note: 25,050 km—core 1 was the first core to be tested. It was not tested at 0.1 and 0.01 Hz at 25°C to avoid the possibility of damage.
The PSPA is able to better evaluate the overall performance of thus be considered as near identical, as their dynamic moduli match
the measured sections compared with the limited data available within experimental variability. The variability of the dynamic
from cores, which fail to give an overall picture. A review of modulus tests is less than 5% on synthetic specimens and more than
the data indicates that while CIR recycling technology is capable 15% on actual briquettes (Celaya et al. 2006). The laboratory and
of achieving seismic modulus values over 2,000 MPa in three field dynamic modulus measurements were utilized to plot the
sections out of four, the QC has been unsatisfactory, manifesting master curves to compare the field cores with the laboratory sam-
as poor precision, which has resulted in the likelihood of failure ples (Fig. 9). Fig. 9 shows that the dynamic moduli values of the
even in those sections. This evaluation has been made possible only laboratory compacted sample and the field cores are closer to each
by the high volume of data collectable with NDT equipment. In the other at higher frequencies or equivalently at low temperatures. The
absence of such data, this failure in the future would have been field cores had higher (2x that of the laboratory compacted sample)
attributed to the inadequacy of the newly introduced CIR recycling moduli at frequencies commonly associated with traffic loading.
technology, while in reality it is a result of poor material and pro- This shows that the laboratory prepared specimens may not be
cess control. representative of the field condition. Any quality control based on
laboratory prepared specimens should be done with caution. Part of
the explanation for higher moduli observed in the field can be
Laboratory Test Results on Extracted Cores attributed to the differences in the method of compaction and
the thickness of the layers (Rojas et al. 1999).
Results of dynamic modulus tests conducted on a laboratory com-
pacted sample (air voids of 12.3%) prepared according to the mix
Correlation between Seismic Moduli Measured in Field
design (and cured for 6 days at 40°C) are shown in Table 3.
and Dynamic Moduli Measured in Laboratory
Dynamic modulus tests at 25, 35, and 45°C were also carried out
on two field cores (results in Table 3), with air voids of 11.9 Data from V-meter (ultrasonic testing equipment) testing of labo-
and 12.7% (close to that of the laboratory compacted sample), ratory sample and from the dynamic modulus tests are shown
respectively. in Table 4. The results from the two devices integrate quite well
Each sample was tested at two temperatures only (to avoid dis- indicating the feasibility of the use of the master curve concept in
turbance) and the results combined to get a master curve. As the integrating seismic based measurements (PSPA) and the laboratory
data from two different samples were utilized, data of the two sam- based dynamic modulus testing.
ples at a common temperature were compared through error testing The ratio of moduli at 10–15 kHz (typical frequency for PSPA)
and were found to be within 15% of each other. These cores can and 12 kHz (traffic speed) from the master curve (2) developed
(0.5) can be used to compare the field seismic moduli with the