Investigating of Hot Storage Stability of the SEPS-Modified Bitumen

Styrene Block Copolymers (SBCs) have attracted the attention of the road engineers to be used as the bitumen modifiers because of their unique properties such as high flexibility, high traction and heat resistant. In this study, SEPS has been chosen from the SBC family and different amounts of it have been added to soft base bitumen and the rheological properties and hot storage stability of the PMB specimens have been studied. The results indicated that at a sufficiently high polymer contents, a continuous polymer phase was observed. Regardless of the nature of the two phases, the storage stability of the modified binders decreased as the polymer content increased. Polymer modification improved bitumen rheological properties such as the elastic responses at high temperatures