Soybean Oil-Derived Additives Evaluated for Use in Bio-cutback and Bio-fog Seal Treatment

Pavement preservation treatments applied before significant deterioration and cracking has occurred can extend the service life of a pavement and reduce future maintenance costs. Rejuvenating materials can help to increase the performance of these preservation treatments. Soybean derived additives have been found to greatly reduce the stiffness of aged and brittle asphalt binders. This study proposes the use of these bio-based additives to be used in a fog seal emulsion and as a bio-cutback treatment. The use of functionalized soybean oil in asphalt pavement treatments can greatly reduce the environmental concerns related to other petroleum-derived materials while providing an economical benefit to local agriculture economy. A small field study was conducted to measure the effectiveness of these biomaterials. No significant effect was observed in the extracted asphalt properties, or the low-temperature fracture energy measured by disk-shaped compact tension test (DCT); however, a decrease in the dynamic modulus at higher frequencies and a large decrease in permeability was observed. The treatments were successful in sealing the asphalt pavement, but a higher application rate is needed to show more significant differences in the rheology.