Hi, I am trying to determine the time needed for asphalt pavements to cure (after final compaction) before opening the road to traffic. Does anyone have any relevant papers that I can use? Thank you in advance.
The curing time of Asphalt pavement depends on the air temperature, pavement temperature ,mix type and type of roller used for compaction. Normally the pavement will be open to traffic after three or four days of laying asphalt and the curing time may be 12 months.
When the surface temperature of pavement is equal to ambient temperature, you can opening the road traffic. (Technical Specification of Highway in Turkey)
The word "curing" appears more appropriate for cold asphalt mixtures (CAM) whereas for hot-mix asphalt (HMA) "cooling" and, afterwards, "aging" is what you should focus on.
Assuming you are dealing with HMA all you need (almost) can be found the excellent textbook: Roberts, F. L., Kandhal, P. S., Brown, E. R., Lee, D. Y., & Kennedy, T. W. (1996). Hot mix asphalt materials, mixture design and construction. (there is also an updated edition).
Normally you can open to traffic when the pavement is "cool" enough, so that the "consistency" of the bitumen allows the material to achieve appropriate stiffness and strength: cool enough is good enough! (As an empirical indication one could consider the softening point of the bitumen). At this stage the pavement will be particularly sensible to high shear stresses, therefore one should be very careful when paving at intersections or short-radius curves (high shear stresses due to cornering tires). Afterwards, aging due to oxidation leads to increase of "consistency" of the binder: things get better! ("consistency" is not the exact technical term, please avoid it).
I was involved in a similar problem during the resurfacing of an airport pavement (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267626200_Presentation_at_BCR2A_2009?ev=prf_pub). Paving was carried out in the night (runway closed) and trafficked in the morning (first landing at 7.00). This was an "extreme" case because shear forces due to breaking could be really high. I used a split-mastix-asphalt (SMA) produced with modified binders. We had a fire truck ready to flood the pavement (and cool it down) in case of delay of paving operations.
Good luck!
Data Presentation at BCR2A 2009
I am in full agreement to Mr. Graziani.
A hot mix asphalt consists of mineral aggregate bound with bitumen using temperature.
Bitumen behaviour/performance:
• at high temperatures (>100ºC) it as a Newtonian fluid
• at lower temperatures (0-60ºC) it as a viscoelastic solid until an elastic solid.
Usually a hot bituminous mixes is applied at a temperature between 180-160ºC . Using high temperatures the bitumen has a viscosity next to 180cP and therefore cover aggregates and the bituminous mixes can be operated (easy manipulated), paving and compaction.
After the compaction process must wait until temperature decrease. There is a moment where the bitumen stiffens and produces cohesion to the mix.
This temperature will depend of bitumen type (normal or modified with polymers) and therefore for both: the penetration grade bitumen used and your softening point and thermal susceptibility.
According to Mr. About a simple way is to wait that surface temperature of pavement is near to ambient temperature.
Finally the type of vehicles that will move, route, bituminous mixes used, bitumen used, thickness of layer, climatology allows opening before or not.
However one of the benefits of bituminous mixes is its easy application and fast putting into service.
Dear
Two issues must be considered. the type of binder (asphalt cement or liquid asphalt), and the pavement temperature after finishing compaction process. if the binder is asphalt cement, then as the pavement temperature is equivalent or below the air temperature, you can take the decision to open to traffic, such process is called cooling.
The second case is that if the binder is cutback or emulsified asphalt, the proper curing time is obtained based on laboratory testing and it is called the curing time, and ranges between three to five days based on the grade of liquid binder. so kindly specify what is your case so that I can supply some papers on the subject
regards
You give a vague question. "Curing" is not fit to hot asphalt mix. But i think that above have give you answer.
dear Abbas...one day is more than enough..just the temperature of pavement after compaction settled down to the ambient temperature you can open the road for traffic..regards
Really it is a good information from all participants in this group.
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