Sustainable Improvements for Mix and Structural Designs for Cold Recycling Technology

Sustainable road infrastructure requires resilient maintenance measures. Cold recycling robust mix design and pavement design procedures for bitumen stabilised materials (BSMs), using either foamed bitumen or emulsified bitumen binders. Periodically, research developments of BSMs in the laboratory and the field lead to upgrading the technology. At the same time, the link between mix design and structural design is galvanised, creating a platform for laboratory test results to be used in the evaluation of sustainable life of the pavement structure. The challenging areas of mix design are highlighted in the some of the particularly successful, with the aim to implement the cold recycling technology: New compaction methods link to the preparation of test specimens in the mix design and finally a solution for QC based on triaxial testing without confinement. This quality control method enables field laboratories to test BSMs with a loading capacity of only 25 kN. Finally, the added benefits allow for monotonic triaxial testing after construction with results that can be checked against the specification limits.