Evaluating the Impact of Industrial Waste Incorporation on the Brittleness of Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA)

To promote the circular economy and the sustainable pavement construction, the feasibility of using three industrial wastes for the manufacture of warm mix asphalt (WMA) has been analyzed. The first WMA used 5% of industrial waste rich in lignin biopolymer from the wood hardboard as a bitumen partial substitute. In the second WMA, 50% of natural filler was replaced by waste biomass fly ashes from the paper industry. The third WMA substituted the 100% natural filler with waste ground granulated blast furnace slag from the steel production. Additionally, a control WMA was studied. The peak load and the strain-at-failure have been analyzed based on the results from indirect tensile strength (ITS) tests. The peak load was used as the main parameter to study the WMA’s brittleness. The WMA produced with 100% ground granulated blast furnace slag exhibited superior performance in terms of brittleness than the control mixture due to a higher breaking displacement, leading to a better cracking performance.