A Comprehensive Evaluation of Rejuvenator on Mechanical Properties, Durability, and Dynamic Characteristics of Artificially Aged Asphalt Mixture

In this study, the aged asphalt binder and mixture were laboratory prepared through short-term ageing testing and long-term ageing testing. Firstly, the effect of rejuvenator on physical properties of aged asphalt binders was investigated. In addition, a series of laboratory tests were performed to evaluate the influence of ageing and rejuvenator content on the mechanical properties, durability and dynamic characteristics of asphalt mixtures. Physical test results of asphalt binder testified that rejuvenator used can efficiently recover the aged asphalt binder. However, the effect of ageing and rejuvenator content exhibits different trends depending on the physical property tests conducted. Moreover, artificially aged asphalt mixture with rejuvenator has better ability to resist moisture damage and ravelling. In addition, the ITSR value is more suitable to evaluate the moisture susceptibility for asphalt recycling. Although rejuvenator improves the thermal cracking resistance and fatigue property of aged asphalt mixture, rejuvenated mixture shows greater modulus and inferior ability to resist reflective cracking than the unaged mixture. Moreover, rejuvenated mixture shows less dependence on frequency at high temperature regions and stronger dependence at low temperature regions compared to unaged and long-term aged mixtures.