Testing and appraisal of Lucobit polymer effect as an additive on asphalt mixture performance

During two last decades intensive investigations have been performed on polymer modified asphalts. Polymers have acceptable effects on asphalt mixes in low and high temperature, by increasing fatigue cracking resistance, rutting and thermal cracking. In the majority of investigations which have ever done, only performance properties of polymer modified asphalts have been compared with other mixes. Optimum polymer content in binder due to volumetric and performance properties of asphalt mixtures must be considered in polymer modified asphalt mix design, which is the most important factor in mix design. Since fatigue and rutting of asphalt mixtures depend on structural properties of used binder, so it's necessary to perform different tests on binder specimens. Although many types of polymer modified binders have been used in Iran up to now, unfortunately particular performance tests were not performed on using binder for determining their optimum properties. In addition to all mentioned factors, other common tests such as fatigue and rutting tests were not performed on polymer modified binders. This essay tries to introduce a type of polymer additives named lucobit for using in asphalt mixtures and evaluating its effect on mixture performance properties, which is important in comparison with traditional asphalt mixtures, after determining optimum polymer content. The results depicted that lucobit could better achieve mixture performance like rutting and fatigue and moisture susceptibility than other polymer such as SBS. These results in combination with the ease of using this kind of additive can lead us to a better system for producing asphalt mixture.