Utilization of silicone maintenance materials to improve the moisture sensitivity

of asphalt mixtures
Juntao Lin
1
, Meizhu Chen
1
, Shaopeng Wu

State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architectures, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, PR China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 30 September 2011
Received in revised form 24 January 2012
Accepted 26 January 2012
Available online 23 February 2012
Keywords:
Asphalt mixture
Moisture damage
Freezethaw cycles
a b s t r a c t
Asphalt pavement preventive maintenance is of increasing interest in pavement industry all around the
world recently. Moisture sensitivity of asphalt mixture is one of the biggest challenges for pavement
maintenance. In China, Silicone Maintenance Materials (SMM) has been initially used to prevent moisture
damage of asphalt pavements. This paper aims at investigating the effect of SMM on moisture sensitivity
of asphalt mixtures in the laboratory. The characterization of SMM was researched by means of Fourier
Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and contact angle test. In addition, the effect of SMM on moisture
sensitivity of asphalt mixtures under multiple freezethaw cycles were evaluated by means of retained
marshall stability, indirect tensile strength and modulus tests, as well as dynamic creep modulus test. The
results indicate that the SMM could decrease the water absorption of mixtures and transfer the commu-
tation void from closed void, as well as increase the retained marshall stability of mixtures. Moreover,
compared to the untreated specimens, SMM increased the TSR value of asphalt mixtures after 1, 3, 7
freezethaw cycles and decreased the permanent deformation of asphalt mixtures under 7 and 14
freezethaw cycles. It can be concluded that the SMM could improve the moisture sensitivity of asphalt
mixture under multiple freezethaw cycles. The research of this paper can support further application of
SMM in China.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Moisture damage is one of the most common failures for asphalt
mixture, especially at high rainfall areas. Moisture damage is de-
ned as the loss of adhesion between aggregates and mortar, refer-
ring to stripping or loss of strength/modulus of mixtures [13],
which causes structural destructions under trafc loading. There-
fore, its necessary and meaningful to nd approaches to solve the
moisture damage of asphalt mixtures and asphalt pavements.
Numerous methods were adopted to improve the moisture sen-
sitivity of asphalt mixtures. Many studies [46] reported that the
addition of hydrated lime in asphalt mixture can signicantly im-
prove moisture damage resistance of the mixture, which makes
hydrated lime the most widely used mineral anti-stripping addi-
tive in asphalt pavement. In addition, other inorganic additives,
including portland cement, y ash and waste brick powder, were
also applied in asphalt mixtures to improve the moisture sensitiv-
ity [79]. Liquid anti-striping additives were also used in asphalt
mixtures to improve the moisture sensitivity of asphalt mixtures.
It was found that the addition of liquid anti-stripping additives
in asphalt mixtures can decrease the potential of moisture damage
[10,11]. All of these methods used in the stage of pavement con-
struction have been proven to be effective.
In terms of asphalt pavement preventive maintenance, several
methods can relieve the moisture damage in asphalt pavements,
such as micro-surfacing, slurry seal, chip seal and fog seal. How-
ever, the specic preventive maintenance conducted on asphalt
pavement should be determined by its general situation containing
moisture damage and other failures [12]. For solving moisture
damage of pavement, fog seal is the most convenient and costless
way.
Generally, materials for fog seal are usually asphalt emulsion or
modied asphalt emulsion, which sprayed on the surface of pave-
ment with a specic dosage to form a waterproof layer on pave-
ment surface. However, the waterproof ability of emulsied
asphalt is not strong enough to prevent stripping due to the lower
bond energy of asphalt between the aggregates than that of water.
Additionally, emulsied asphalt will stay on the surface of pave-
ment and decrease skid resistance due to its poor permeability.
Consequently, the emulsied asphalt is not very suitable to solve
the moisture damage of asphalt pavement. Recently, besides
emulsied asphalt, a lot of other maintenance materials are
adopted in pavement maintenance to improve the moisture dam-
age resistance and aging resistance of asphalt mixture. Among
these materials, silicone maintenance materials have a potential
0950-0618/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2012.01.012

Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 27 87162595.

E-mail addresses: in@whut.edu.cn (J. Lin), chenmeizhu@whut.edu.cn
(M. Chen), asphaltgroup2@gmail.com (S. Wu).
1
Tel./fax: +86 27 87162595.
Construction and Building Materials 33 (2012) 16
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to provide better performance on moisture damage due to its high
waterproof ability. Silicone is widely used as waterproof materials
in building constructions and fabric care electrical industry [13].
Silicone Maintenance Materials (SMM) has already been initially
applied in China on asphalt pavement. However, the effect and
the mechanism of silicone maintenance materials on moisture
damage of asphalt mixture are not clear, which provides the moti-
vation to undertake the present research.
The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of silicone
maintenance materials on long term moisture damage of asphalt
mixture. Asphalt mixtures with and without silicone maintenance
materials are rstly subjected to multiple freezethaw cycles.
Then, properties such as volume performance, indirect tensile
modulus and creep resistance are compared.
2. Materials and test methods
2.1. Materials
Silicone Maintenance Material (SMM) is a colorless transparent silicone com-
pound, composed with silicone resin, penetrating agent and tackier. Fig. 1 shows
the picture of SMM, while Fig. 2 shows the synthesis process of SMM.
Base asphalt binder with a permeation grade 90 was used in this study, which
was supplied by Koch Asphalt Co. Ltd., China. The basic properties of asphalt binder
were as follows: penetration 69 at 25 C; softening point, 45.5 C; ductility 169.5 cm
at 15 C.
Basalt Aggregate used in this study was obtained from Tongliao, Inner Mongolia
China. Table 1 gives the basic physical properties of basalt aggregate.
2.2. Mixture types and preparation
AC-16 mixture type was adopted according to Chinas specication. The grading
curve for mixtures was shown in Fig. 3. Marshall Tests were carried out to nd the
optimum asphalt binder content of mixtures, which was 5.0% by weight of aggre-
gates. In this study, all the asphalt mixture samples used for following research
were prepared by Superpave Gyratory Compactor (SGC) and standard marshall
hummer.
2.3. Test methods
2.3.1. Characterization tests of SMM
Contact angel test was conducted based on image analysis method with a sys-
tem of CA-X150 produced in Japan, which was used to get the contact angle be-
tween SMM and water. Five different positions for one sample placed water
droplets and the average value was adopted as the contact angle. The contact angle
represented the wetability of materials.
Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) was used to characterize the
molecular structure of SMM. Liquid SMM was dropped onto the KBr table and dried
for the FTIR analysis.
2.3.2. Volumetric properties tests
AASHTO T-283, a standard method of test for resistance of compacted asphalt
mixtures to moisture induced damage, was the most widely recognized labora-
tory test method to predict moisture sensitivity. According to AASHTO T-283
specication, the specimens were subjected to freezethaw cycle, in which, the
time span freeze process was 16 h while the thawing process was 24 h. However,
the freezethawing process was modied to make multiple freezethaw cycles
more convenient. During the modied freezethawing process, the specimens were
rstly subjected to vacuum saturation for 15 min at the a vacuum of 254
660 mm Hg partial pressure, and then those specimens were placed in a freezer
at a temperature of 18 C for approximately 16 h. After the freeze process was
completed, the specimens were removed and placed directly into the water bath
at a temperature of 60 C for about 8 h to proceed freezethawing process. As a
result, a freezethaw cycle can be completed in one day, and thus the multiple
freezethawing cycles will be accelerated. The modied freezethaw cycle was
used in all of tests in this study when referring to freezethaw cycle. In this test,
the mixture specimens were subjected to multiple freezethaw cycles, the cycles
number were determined as 1, 3, 7 and 14, and then the water absorption ratio
and density of samples were measured at each cycle.
2.3.3. Marshall stability tests
Marshall specimens were prepared by using standard marshall hummer with
75 blows on each side of cylindrical samples. The specimens were then divided in
four groups, and the average specic gravity of the specimens of each group should
be equal. Two of the four groups of specimens, including one group of mixtures with
SMM treated and the other group without SMM were immersed in water at 60 C
for 30 min and then loaded to failure at a constant compression rate of 50 mm/
min. In terms of other two group of mixtures, one group of mixtures were also trea-
ted with SMM with the dosage of 600 ml/m
2
, the other group were not treated with
SMM as control group, and then, placed these two groups of specimens (condi-
tioned specimens) in water bath at 60 C for both 48 h and 96 h. The same condition
of loading on rst group as described above was applied on these groups. The Re-
tained Marshall Stability (RMS) was then obtained by using the average stability
of each group using the following formula:
RMS MS
conditioned
=MS
unconditioned
1
where RMS is the retained marshall stability, MS
conditioned
is the average marshall sta-
bility for conditioned specimens; kN and MS
unconditioned
is the average marshall stabil-
ity for unconditioned specimens; kN.
2.3.4. Indirect tensile tests
The water sensitivity of the asphalt mixtures was evaluated by the decrease of
the Indirect Tensile Strength (ITS). All the samples with air voids of 7% were sub-
jected to the multiple freezethaw cycles. The results of this test were measured
by ITS and tensile strength ratio (TSR). The water sensitivity of mixture could be
evaluated using the TSR value as follows.
TSR TS
1
=TS
2
2
whereTS
1
is the averagetensile strengthof conditionedspecimen, MPa; TS
2
is theaverage
tensile strength of unconditioned specimen, MPa.
Indirect tensile modulus tests were conducted to insightfully understand the ef-
fect of temperature on the mixture in accordance with AASHTO TP-31 test proce-
dure. The asphalt specimens with 63.0 2.0 mm height and 100 2.0 mm
diameter were prepared and then subjected to freezethaw cycle. Resilient modu-
lus of specimens was tested at the temperatures of 5 C, 25 C and 40 C by the Uni-
versal Testing Machine (UTM-25). The test mode was under the assumed Poisson
ration of 0.3, 0.35 and 0.4 for the different temperature 5 C, 25 C and 40 C,
respectively.
2.3.5. Creep tests
The uniaxial repeated-load creep tests were used to study the rutting potential
of mixtures. The specimens with 100 mm diameter and 60 mm height were pre-
pared. The tests were performed at 60 C. Haversine wave stress pulse was used
with a constant compressive stress at 100 kPa. Loading period include 0.1 s com-
press and 0.9 s for rest. Test would be terminated when the accumulative load cy-
cles reached 5000. The vertical deformation can be measured and the accumulated
microstrain also can be calculated by Eq. (2).
e h=H
0
3
where e is the accumulated microstrain, h is the axial deformation, mm; and H
0
is the
initial specimen height, mm.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Characterization of SMM
Fig. 4 shows the infraredspectroscopy analysis curve of solidied
SMM lm. As seen in this gure, the peaks in 33003350 cm
1
region refer to SiOH while the peaks in 28502960 cm
1
region
are typical CH stretching vibrations, and the CH sym-
metric deforming vibrations are observed at 14001500 cm
1
and Fig. 1. Picture of silicone maintenance materials.
2 J. Lin et al. / Construction and Building Materials 33 (2012) 16
13001350 cm
1
. The most obvious peaks within 10001100 cm
1
regioninthis gure are SiOvibrations, whichis the mainfunctional
group in SMM. The SiO bond in SMMformthe main chain to make
the SMM with high hydrophobicity and chemical durability, which
ensures the SMM can be applied in the asphalt pavement.
According to the Young equation given in Eq. (4), the wetting
process on surface of solid can not proceed spontaneously when
the contact angle between solid and liquid is higher than 90,
and the hydrophobicity of materials increases with the increase
of contact angle between water.
c
sg
c
sl
c
lg
cos h 4
where c
sg
is surface tension between solid and gas; c
sl
is surface
tension between liquid and solid; c
lg
is surface tension between li-
quid and gas, h is contact angle.
Fig. 5 shows the result of contact angle between water and
SMM, which is 93.6 and surely higher than 90. Therefore, the
solidied SMM lm can not be wetting, which also means the
SMM can act as waterproof materials in asphalt mixtures.
3.2. Volume performance
Fig. 6 illustrates the results of air void variation of asphalt mix-
tures under multiple freezethaw cycles. The air void of both kinds
of mixtures increase with the increase of freezethaw cycle, and
the untreated mixtures show a higher air void increase trend than
the group of mixtures treated with SMM, which can be attributed
to the loss of adhesion between the ne aggregates and asphalt.
However, the SMM treated mixtures exhibits considerably higher
air void than that of control mixtures, which can be attributed to
that the communication voids in asphalt mixture are sealed up
as closed voids. Normally, there are two kinds of voids (communi-
cation voids and closed voids) in asphalt mixture, and the commu-
nication voids are not included in the calculation of air voids in
mixtures. The differences in air voids between asphalt mixtures
conditioned with SMM and control mixtures indicate that the
Fig. 2. Synthesis process of silicone maintenance materials.
Table 1
Basic properties of basalt aggregate in this test.
Property Measured values
Specic gravity (g/cm
3
) 2.719
Water absorption ratio (%) 0.98
Abrasion loss (%) 18.6
Crushing value (%) 14.4
Fig. 3. Grading curves of aggregates.
Fig. 4. Results of the FTIR test of silicone maintenance materials.
Fig. 5. Contact angle between water and silicone maintenance materials.
J. Lin et al. / Construction and Building Materials 33 (2012) 16 3
SMM transform the communication void into closed void. There-
fore, the SMM decreases the communication voids in asphalt mix-
ture, which will prevent the water from permeating into the
mixtures and thus will radically relieve the moisture damage of
mixtures.
Fig. 7 shows the results of water absorption of asphalt mixture
with and without SMM under multiple freezethaw cycles. As seen
in Fig. 7, water absorption of asphalt mixtures also increase with
increasing of freezethaw cycles, which also can be attributed to
that the moisture induced damage occurs in asphalt mixture.
Moreover, asphalt mixtures treated with SMM are observed to
have lower water absorption than that of control mixture, which
also validate the conclusion that the SMM can transform the com-
munication void into closed void and therefore relieve the mois-
ture damage of mixtures.
3.3. Marshall stability
The marshall stability of asphalt mixtures are given in Fig. 8. It
is observed that the mixtures treated with SMM show higher mar-
shall stability than that of control mixtures at both 48 and 96 mar-
inated hours. In addition, the retained marshall stability of
mixtures treated with SMM is considerable higher than that of
control mixture. Specically, as the conditioned time is 96 h, the
retained marshall stability of SMM treated mixtures is 7.3% higher
as a comparison with control mixture. Previous research indicated
that the retained marshall stability can reect the moisture sensi-
tivity of asphalt mixture [14,15]. In consequence, the SMM can de-
crease the moisture sensitivity of asphalt to some degree.
3.4. TSR value
The ITS and TSR value are often used to evaluate the moisture
susceptibility of asphalt mixture [16]. The ITS and TSR results of as-
phalt mixtures subjected to multiple freezethaw cycles are pres-
ent in Fig. 9. As seen in this gure, SMM treated mixtures and
control mixtures have the similar ITS at 0 freezethaw cycle. In
addition, ITS of both mixtures decreases with the increase of
freezethaw cycles. It is indicated that the loss of ITS of asphalt
mixtures treated with SMM due to moisture damage is less than
unconditioned mixtures at all of freezethaw cycles. The TSR value
of all the mixtures is also shown in Fig. 9, which indicates that the
TSR for all mixtures decreases regularly as the number of freeze
thaw cycles increases. SMM treated mixtures exhibits a remark-
able higher TSR value than that of untreated mixtures at each
freezethaw cycle. Moreover, it is noted that the TSR value of un-
treated asphalt mixture is below 80% after 3 freezethaw cycles,
while the TSR of SMM treated mixtures is higher than 80% even
subjected to 7 cycles. The results of TSR value indicate that the
SMM can improve the moisture damage resistance of asphalt mix-
ture, which can be concluded that the SMM can prevent water
from permeating into the mixtures, and therefore decrease the po-
tential of loss adhesion between aggregates and mortar.
3.5. Indirect tensile modulus
Moisture damage will decrease modulus of asphalt mixtures,
which was conrmed by previous researchers [17,18]. Indirect ten-
sile modulus was measured at 5 C, 25 C and 40 C for mixtures
subjected to multiple freezethaw cycles. Fig. 10 shows the modu-
lus of mixtures treated with SMM and control mixtures at 7, 14
freezethaw cycles. It can be seen that the modulus of asphalt mix-
ture is decreasing as the number of freezethaw cycles increase,
Fig. 6. Air void variation of asphalt mixtures under multiple freezethaw cycles.
Fig. 7. Water absorption variation of asphalt mixtures under multiple freezethaw
cycles.
Fig. 8. Marshall stability of asphalt mixtures.
Fig. 9. ITS and TSR results of asphalt mixture under multiple freezethaw cycles.
4 J. Lin et al. / Construction and Building Materials 33 (2012) 16
the SMM treated mixtures exhibits the higher modulus than that of
untreated mixtures under freezethaw cycles. The modulus of
SMM treated mixtures is 45.1% higher than untreated mixtures
particularly at the 14 cycles. Comparing to the modulus of mix-
tures treated with SMM and untreated at both 7 and 14 cycles, it
can be concluded that the SMM can decrease the variation of mod-
ulus of mixtures, which also indicated the SMM can relieve the
moisture damage of mixtures. The reason for this phenomenon is
consistent with the function of SMM in mixtures as mentioned in
Section 3.4.
3.6. Creep performance
The vertical deformation of mixtures is given in Fig. 11. The ver-
tical deformation increases as the number of loading cycles in-
crease. Mixtures subjected to 14 freezethaw cycles have a
higher deformation compared to the mixtures subjected to 7 cy-
cles, which indicates that the asphalt mixtures are prone to deform
easier by moisture damage due to the loss of adhesion between
aggregates and mortar. Consequently, the potential of rutting for
asphalt pavement will increase due to moisture damage. It is noted
that the SMM treated mixtures exhibit a lower deformation than
that of untreated mixtures at both 7 and 14 freezethaw cycles.
Previous studies [19,20] indicated the moisture damage of asphalt
mixtures increase its permanent deformation. Therefore, the
results of this test also indicated that the SMM can improve the
moisture sensitivity of asphalt mixture.
4. Conclusions
This paper investigates the effect of SMM on moisture resis-
tance of asphalt mixtures. Various laboratory tests were used to
evaluate the improvements. Based on the tests result, conclusions
can be drawn as follows:
(1) FTIR tests indicate that SiO is the main function group in
SMM. In addition, contact angle test shows that the contact
angle between water and SMM is 93.6, which means SMM
can protect materials form water and results in improving
the moisture sensitivity of asphalt mixture.
(2) Air void of asphalt mixture increases with the increase of
freezethaw cycles. SMM treated mixtures exhibit higher
air void than untreated mixtures under freezethaw condi-
tion for SMMcan transformthe communication voids in mix-
tures into closed voids. In addition, the SMMtreated mixtures
show lower water absorption than that of untreated
mixtures.
(3) The retained marshall stability of mixtures treated with
SMM is considerable higher than that of untreated mixtures.
SMM treated mixtures exhibits much higher TSR value than
that of untreated mixtures after the same freezethaw
cycles. The results of TSR value indicate that the SMM can
improve the moisture resistance of asphalt mixture.
(4) The indirect tensile modulus of asphalt mixture decrease as
the number of freezethaw cycles increase, and SMM trea-
ted mixtures exhibit higher modulus than that of untreated
mixtures under freezethaw cycles.
(5) The SMM treated mixtures exhibit lower deformation than
that of untreated mixtures at both 7 and 14 freezethaw
cycles.
Based on the laboratory test results mentioned above, it can be
concluded that the SMM can effectively improve the moisture sen-
sitivity of asphalt mixtures. Further researches on SMM treated as-
phalt mixture are highly recommended to understand the
correlation between the laboratory and practical applications.
Acknowledgements
This paper is supported by the Project of International Science &
Technology Cooperation Program of China (2010DFA82490) and
Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundationof China (2009CDA053).
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