Development of a bitumen-bound high performance base course material

This paper describes an experimental investigation conducted to develop a novel three-component high performance base course material, designed to produce the highest possible interlocking and elastic modulus without causing reflective cracking. Compressive strength tests were performed on cylindrical specimens containing bitumen-coated and non-coated crushed stones as coarse aggregates. Initial test results indicated that coating the stones with bitumen emulsion reduced the compressive strength of the specimens by more than 50%. Moreover, the coating also caused a significant decrease in Young’s modulus. Additional specimens with coated stones were loaded until failure, but loading was applied carefully so as not to cause specimen disintegration. Cracked specimens were subsequently encapsulated with rubber membranes and tested under dynamic triaxial conditions. The test results indicate that the material has an excellent performance in terms of resilient modulus. The performance of the high performance base course material developed herein is, thus far, superior to other commonly used base course materials.