Moisture susceptibility and mechanical properties of green asphalt mixture containing reclaimed asphalt pavement, slag, and waste plastic

The non-renewability of natural materials and the prevention of environmental degradation for the production of stone materials, has increased the tendency to use waste materials in asphalt mixtures in recent decades. Several research studies were conducted to assess WMA mixtures' mechanical properties containing Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP), Electric Arc Furnace Slag (EAFS), and waste plastic (WP) separately. However, very scarce studies assessed the influence of the simultaneous presence of RAP, EAFS, and waste plastic on the mechanical properties and moisture susceptibility of WMA mixtures. This research investigates the effects of simultaneous recycling of RAP, EAFS, and waste plastic into the WMA mixtures to remove these barriers. Mechanical properties of WMA mixtures containing different percentages of RAP (0%, 35%, and 55%, fine aggregate replacement), EAFS (0%, 20%, and 40%, coarse aggregate replacement), and waste plastic (0%, and 10% bitumen weight) were evaluated using compressive strength, resilient modulus, static creep, Marshall quotient, and moisture susceptibility tests. Sasobit uses 1.5% of the total asphalt mass to prepared WMA mixtures. The results of this study were shown to improve the moisture sensitivity, rutting resistance, and resilient modulus by increasing the percentage of RAP and also reduce the resistance to moisture sensitivity and improve the compressive strength of mixtures by increasing the percentage of EAFS and decreasing the compressive strength and resilient modulus by increasing waste plastic. The simultaneous use of EAFS, RAP, and waste plastic seems to produce an environmentally-friendly mixture with minimum mechanical properties.