During the past years different researchers have studied the causes of failure of flexible pavements\nand they offered variety of alternatives for solving these failure problems such as rutting,\nfatigue and low temperature cracking which are sourced from moisture susceptibility and also\ntemperature sensitivity of either asphalt, aggregate or the asphalt mixture as a whole. This study\nis conducted to determine the optimum amount and potential applicability of zycotherm nanomaterial\nin asphalt and asphalt concrete mixtures with two different systems: directly applying to\nbitumen and diluting and applying to aggregate in order to address the solution of potential failure\nproblems in flexible pavements. The study is carried out experimentally by conducting tests\non bitumen and bituminous mixtures. Tensile strength test and retained stability tests were performed\non bituminous mixture in order to measure the tensile strength ratio (TSR) and the retained\nstability index (RSI), which are both the indexed parameters to determine the mixture resistance\nto de-bonding and disintegration in the presence of water. Penetration, softening point,\nRTFOT, PAV, BBR and DSR tests were also performed on bitumen to determine the effect of zycotherm\non bitumen�s contribution on rutting, fatigue and low temperature cracking of the mixture.\nIt is found that using zycotherm material greatly increases the resistance of asphalt mixture to\nmoisture induced damages and also increases its resistance to rutting, fatigue and low temperature\ncracking.
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