The Influence of Combining Inorganic Nano Materials to Improve Asphalt Structure and Performance in Road and Bridge Inspection Practice

• Published in: MATERIALS TRANSACTIONS Vol. 66; no. 2; pp. 211 - 219
• Main Authors: Liu, Jingyi, Liu, Kaiping, Wen, Jiuran
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sendai The Japan Institute of Metals and Materials 01.02.2025; Japan Science and Technology Agency
• Subjects: Aging; asphalt; Asphalt pavements; atomic force microscope; Bridge inspection; Chemical composition; Climate change; Correlation analysis; Experiments; Gray scale; grayscale correlation method; High temperature; Indicators; inorganic nano materials; Molecular structure; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Oxidation; Oxidation resistance; Performance enhancement; Rheological properties; Rheology; Silicon dioxide; Softening points; Titanium dioxide; Vermiculite; Weather; Weathering; Zinc oxide
• DOI: 10.2320/matertrans.MT-N2024007
• ISSN: 1345-9678

Recently, due to global climate change, extreme weather events have occurred frequently. While the majority of roads in China are constructed using asphalt pavement, the current unmodified asphalt has been unable to withstand the growing axle load and harsh weather conditions. Consequently, this situation significantly impacts the lifespan of asphalt pavement. This study proposes an improved asphalt performance based on organic vermiculite inorganic nano materials, and designs experiments for analysis. Then, it combines atomic force microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance methods to analyze the microscopic molecular composition of asphalt materials. The grayscale correlation method is used to analyze the macroscopic physical rheological indicators and microscopic component changes, molecular structure and other indicators of asphalt. Experiments showed that compared with macroscopic physical and rheological aging indicators, the modulus growth rate was the highest and the residual roughness was the lowest. The rutting factor approached 0 as the temperature rose around 50°C. The deformation of ZnO was similar to that of the base asphalt, with the smallest degree of modification and the strongest modification ability of TiO2. The softening points of 70# matrix asphalt, ZnO, TiO2, and SiO2 were 49.5, 51.2, 48.9, and 54.6, respectively. Furthermore, the modified asphalt exhibits enhanced stability at high temperatures, indicating the effectiveness of incorporating inorganic nano materials to improve the performance of matrix asphalt. This finding can significantly contribute to the wider adoption and engineering development of asphalt pavement.