Asfalt adalah sangat penting dalam Industri Jalan. Asfalt merupakan cecair yang sangat pekat memerlukan capaian suhu yang sangat tinggi bagi membolehkan ia bersalut dengan batu batuan. Asphalt campuran panas merupakan satu teknologi yang bselalu digunakan dalan Industri Jalan. Asphalt campuran panas di hasilkan dengan menggunakan suhu yang tinggi bagi menurunkan nilai kepekatan. Jadi, proses pemampatan asphalt akan dilakukan pada suhu yang tinggi dimana bersuhu 149oC. Suhu yang tinggi memerlukan penggunaan bahan api yg banyak dalam memanaskan asphalt dan menyebabkan pengerluan lebih gas rumah hijau. Jadi, penambahbaikan kepada asphalt campuran panas seharusnya dilakukan bagi menurunkan penggunaan suhu yang sangat tinggi kepada yang rendah. Penambahbaikan itu dilakukan dengan menamakan asphalt campuran suam. Kadar penurunan suhu bagi asphalt campuran panas adalah 20 – 40 oC. Dengan itu, dengan penggunaan suhu yang rendah, asphalt campuran suam dapat menyaluti batu batuan dengan baik. Asphalt campuran panas juga dapat mengurangkan penggunaan bahan api dan selanjutnya dapat mengurangkan kadar pengeluaran gas rumah hijau terhadap alam sekitar. Dengan itu, asphalt campuran suam lebih menarik digunakan disebabkan kadar harga bahan api yg tinggi, pemanasan global dan peraturan yang ketat. Bagi projek ini, bahan tambah telah digunakan dan ujian terhadap asphalt campuran suam dijalankan bagi mengenal pasti ciri-cirinya. Kesan kepada bahan tambah itu, didapati kelikatan asphalt telah menurun dengan suhu yang rendah berbanding dengan asphalt asal. Dengan penggunaan bahan tambah, nilai asphaltene juga didapati berkurangan berbanding asphalt tanpa bahan tambah.
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The asphalt binder is very important in road and pavement industry. One of the common technology been used and commercialized in road industry is the hot mix asphalt. HMA is produced by heating the asphalt binder at high temperature to reduce their viscosity. Therefore, the paving and compaction would be performed at very high temperature which is 149oC. Due to high temperature requirement, it causes the higher consumption of fuel for heating the asphalt binder. The drawback of this technology includes the release of the greenhouse gases that will harm the environment. So, the improvement of HMA technology is very important to lower the production temperature of the asphalt binder. The new technology is referred to as warm mix asphalt technology. The temperature reduction for this technology is about 20 to 40oC. So, the warm mix asphalt technology tends to coat the asphalt binder with the aggregates at lower temperature compared to hot mix asphalt. The reduced temperature would consume less energy, thus lessen the greenhouse gas emission. Therefore, the warm mix asphalt is more interested to be carried out due to rising energy prices, global warming and more stringent environmental regulation. In this research, wax, pyrolysis residue and zeolite were used as additive into asphalt binder and tested for their properties changes. The properties of the asphalt binder and additives were analyzed by carried out the elemental analysis, thermo-gravimetric analysis, asphaltene analysis and viscosity test. From the results, the additions of the additives give reduction of viscosity at lower temperature compared to virgin binder. The additives also affect the asphaltene content in the asphalt binder. Asphaltene content become lower than the virgin binder itself.
Effects of warm mix asphalt additives on properties of asphalt binder / Nor Izzah Ali