Journal of Civil Engineering Research 2015, 5(2): 39-44
DOI: 10.5923/j.jce.20150502.04
The Study of Mixture Design for Foam Bitumen and
the Polymeric and Oil Materials Function in Loose
Soils Consolidation
Kaveh Ostad-Ali-Askari
1,*
, Mohammad Shayannejad
2
1
PhD Student, Department of Water Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad,
Iran
2
Associate Professor, Water Engineering Department, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
Abstract Due to the enormous growth of new chemicals, especially polymer materials in construction projects, and the
importance and effectiveness of these new materials in poor soil stabilization, recently has closed chemistry and polymer
sciences to civil science. The use of materials such as bitumen in stabilization of flowing and loose soil and using of polymer
resins reflects the effect of these substances is very high on construction projects. Considering the importance of oil and
polymer materials in soil stabilization, in this study performance of polymer materials and their comparison have been
investigated. Oil materials such as bitumen can be used to stabilize the soil, and polymer resins such as polyvinyl alcohol and
polyvinyl acetate, and also pointed polypropylene synthetic fiber can be considered as polymer materials. Bitumen foam is
one of the fixative materials that obtain by adding water to hot bitumen, and is applicable to a wide range of stone materials.
In addition to, polymer resins increase the burden go loose soils. Polymer fibers due to high durability and easy application
and no problem at saturation conditions are highly regarded by civil engineers.
Keywords Soil stabilization, Bitumen, New chemical materials, Polymer resins
1. Introduction
Use of materials such as bitumen in stabilization of
flowing and loose soil and using polymer resins reflects the
importance of these substances on construction projects.
Each pavement rehabilitation require a certain time period
that best rehabilitation method chooses according to the road
conditions. One method for rehabilitation is implementation
of coating. The main problem is limitation of high quality
materials and asphalt factories, which lead to increase costs
of transportation of materials to the project site. Nowadays,
advancement of technology in cold recycling machines
minimizes these problems.
Foam bitumen produces by adding a small amount of
water (2-3% by weight of bitumen) to hot bitumen
(160-180
o
C). After injection of water to hot bitumen, the
water evaporates suddenly and leads to explosive bitumen
foaming in the saturate stream.
2. Material and Methods
* Corresponding author:
Ostadaliaskarik@pci.iaun.ac.ir (Kaveh Ostad-Ali-Askari)
Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/jce
Copyright © 2015 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved
2.1. Foam Bitumen
Figure 1 shows internal system of cold recycling machine.
In this figure the asphalt pavement has been destroyed and
need cover that is fixed by foam bitumen. A protective
asphalt layer with thickness of 3 cm places on the stabilized
basis of foam bitumen. Thickness of asphalt layer depends
on the volume of traffic passing. This reduces costs of
material transportation [1].
The foam bitumen produces when small amount of water
add to hot bitumen. After water injection into the hot
bitumen (figure 2), bitumen is formed into steam that
consists of thousands of tiny foam vapor, and bitumen easily
coat around the cold aggregates and increases the adhesion
between materials [2]. This method can simply be
implemented in most Iran streets. Streets that need
rehabilitation the overall improvement of streets that needs
to be coated. Destroyed asphalt pavement turned into the
foam bitumen with this method and a layer of protective
asphalt adds to it.
2.2. Advantages of using Foam Bitumen
Easy to use: similar to the bitumen emulsion, Foam
bitumen can be used to stabilization of recycled materials by
attachment of bitumen reservoir and foam chamber to
recycler machine [1].