Abstract:
The most common road construction method in Ethiopia is flexible pavement, which is a hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement. Hot mix asphalt design is the process of determining appropriate proportion of materials used in the mix that would give long lasting performance of a paving mixture during its service life. The common hot mix asphalt proportions are coarse aggregate, fine aggregate, filler materials and asphalt binders.
The study-focuses on the evaluation of the effects of a naturally and locally available fiber called jute fiber as a stabilizing additive in asphalt mixes with locally available bitumen having a grade of 60/70.
In this research, the effect of the natural fiber on marshal Properties and moisture susceptibilities in asphalt mixtures was evaluated. The effect of aggregate gradation with fiber content and length on asphalt mixes was also evaluated.
In this study, 12.5mm and 19mm nominal maximum aggregate size (NMAS) aggregate gradation hot mix asphalt mixtures were used with the penetration grade of 60/70 bitumen. The aggregate materials were collected from Bahir Dar area. For the preparation of the mixes, aggregate gradation was taken as per ERA 2013 flexible pavement design specification. Two different jute fiber lengths (13mm and 20mm) were used with the concentration of 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4% and 0.5% the total mix. The binder content was varied from 4 % to 6 % of the total mix with an increment 0.5 %. Marshal flow, stability and indirect tensile strength tests were performed in order to analysis the effect of fiber on mechanical properties and volumetric properties of asphalt mixes. The SPSS software for statistically analysis of the test results was used.
The asphalt mixes prepared at OBC with OFC and subjected to indirect tensile strength performance test. The optimum bitumen contents in 12.5mm NMAS and 19mm NMAS mixes were found to be 5.45 % and 4.95 % respectively. The optimum fiber content in 12.5mm and 19mm NMAS mixes was 0.3% in both 13mm and 20mm fiber length respectively. The result of tensile strength ratio was more than 80 percent. Therefore, the asphalt mixes were improved in resisting the moisture damage.
From the result and discussion, it can be observed that- the addition of jute fiber has improved the Marshall properties, volumetric properties and the resistance of moisture susceptibility. The marshal properties were statistically significant except flow properties at 13mm fiber length and asphalt mixes with 20mm fiber length only flow and stability were statistically significant with respect to the fiber content.
It recommends for the government of ERA to permit using jute fiber in hot mix asphalt pavement depending on the results of this research and constructing test road sections with asphalt mixes containing jute fiber is recommended before the whole section constructed.