Abstract:
World over road construction has taken a centre stage owing to the impetus it provides to the economy. Bitumen is a black coloured, semi-solid hydrocarbon obtained as an end product during refining of crude oil and is predominantly used as binder for road pavement. With increased economic growth, infrastructure development and road network expansion, the world bitumen demand have grown by 3.3% per year and will reach to 26.8 million tonnes per year by 2021.
India is a vast country, having wide variations in climates, and traffic conditions in terms of loads and volumes. India has the second largest road network around 4.7 million km in world and about 60% of all goods and 85% of India’s population use the road network. Transportation infrastructure with growing economy is rapidly expanding at a rate of 6.1% in 2017 and is expected to increase by 7.3% in 2021 with the challenging development of road networks.
Currently, roads are made up of flexible pavements with bituminous layer. However, the service life of bituminous roads is limited due to the viscoelastic properties of bitumen and the environmental factors such as temperature, air, water, binders etc. which are responsible for damaging the durability and long-term performance of pavements, causes deterioration of their road structures due to rutting failure and fatigue cracking. Thus, present study is an attempt to modify bitumen for the improvement of performance properties.
