In the 1980s, the French Administration Roads LCPC developed high modulus mixtures (EME) by using hard binder. This type of mixture presented good resistance to moisture damage and improved mechanical properties for asphalt mixtures including high modulus, good fatigue behaviour and excellent resistance to rutting. In Iraq, this type of mixture has not been used yet. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the performance of high modulus mixtures and comparing them with the conventional mixture, to achieve this objective, asphalt concrete mixes were prepared and then tested to evaluate their engineering properties which include moisture damage, resilient modulus, permanent deformation and fatigue characteristics. These properties have been evaluated using indirect tensile strength, uniaxial repeated loading and repeated flexural beam tests. EME mixes were found to have improved fatigue and permanent deformation characteristics, also showed more resistance to moisture damage than conventional mix by 9.3 percent and the resilient modulus at temperature 60 oC increased by 63 percent. The general theme viewed from the results of this study has added to local knowledge the ability to produce more durable asphalt concrete mixtures with better serviceability using EME mixes.
Lignin has emerged as a promising asphalt binder modifier due to its sustainable and renewable nature, with the potential to improve flexible pavement performance. This study investigates the use of Soda Lignin Powder (SLP), derived from Pinus wood sawdust via alkaline treatment, as an asphalt modifier to enhance mixture durability. SLP was characterized using Fourier Transformation Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), and Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (SEM/EDX), revealing significant changes in its chemical structure post-extraction. These analyses showed the presence of phenolic units, including hydroxyphenyl propane, syringyl, and guaiacyl units. The morphology of SLP was identified
... Show MoreDeep learning (DL) plays a significant role in several tasks, especially classification and prediction. Classification tasks can be efficiently achieved via convolutional neural networks (CNN) with a huge dataset, while recurrent neural networks (RNN) can perform prediction tasks due to their ability to remember time series data. In this paper, three models have been proposed to certify the evaluation track for classification and prediction tasks associated with four datasets (two for each task). These models are CNN and RNN, which include two models (Long Short Term Memory (LSTM)) and GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit). Each model is employed to work consequently over the two mentioned tasks to draw a road map of deep learning mod
... Show MoreFlexible pavements are subjected to three main distress types: fatigue crack, thermal crack, and permanent deformation. Under severe climate conditions, thermal cracking particularly contributes largely to a considerable scale of premature deterioration of pavement infrastructure worldwide. This challenge is especially relevant for Europe, as weather conditions vary significantly throughout the year. Hydrated lime (HL) has been recognized as an effective additive to improve the mechanical properties of asphalt concrete for pavement applications. Previous research has found that a replacement of conventional limestone dust filler using hydrated lime at 2.5% of the total weight of aggregates generated an optimum improvement in the mec
... Show MoreThe reality of the field of construction projects in Iraq refers to needing for the development of performance in order to improve quality and reduce defects and errors and to control the time and cost, so there is needing for the application of effective methods in this area, one of the methods that can be applied in this area is the manner of Six Sigma. This research aims to enhance the performance and quality improvement for the construction projects by improving performance in the work of the implementation of the concrete structure depending on the Six Sigma methodology, and for the purpose of achieving the aim of the research, the researcher firstly depends on the theoretical study that include the concepts of qual
... Show MoreTensile strength is a critical property of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) pavements and is closely related to distresses such as fatigue cracking. This study aims to evaluate methods for assessing fatigue cracking in Asphalt Concrete (AC) mixes. In order to achieve optimum density at different binder contents, the mixes were compressed using a gyratory compactor. Tensile strength was assessed using the Indirect Tensile (IDT) and Semi-Circular Bend (SCB) tests. The results showed that the tensile strength measured by the SCB test was consistently higher than that measured by the IDT test at 25 °C. In addition, the SCB test showed a stronger correlation between increasing binder content and tensile strength. For binder contents ranging from 4
... Show MoreThe distress of moisture induced damage in flexible pavement received tremendous attention over the past decades. The harmful effects of this distress expand the deterioration of other known distresses such as rutting and fatigue cracking. This paper focused on the efficiency of using the waste material of demolished concrete to prepare asphalt mixtures that can withstand the effect of moisture in the pavement. For this purpose, different percentages of waste demolished concrete (0, 10, 20, 30, 50, 70 and 100) were embedded as a replacement for coarse aggregate to construct the base course. The optimum asphalt contents were determined depending on the Marshall method. Then after, two parameters were founded to evaluate the moisture
... Show MoreDue to economic reasons or need for environmental conservatism or also preserve the natural resources; there has been an increasing shift towards the use of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) materials in the pavement construction industry. Therefore, use the Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) has been enormously increased in pavement construction and has been become common practice in many countries. Nevertheless, this is a relatively new concept in Iraq, and has to be remarked that is not used RAP in the production of HMA and this valuable material is mostly degraded. For this purpose, the reclaimed materials were collected from deteriorated pavement segments. The components of asphalt mixtures consist of: two asphalt penetration grades (40-5
... Show MoreThe rehabilitation of deteriorated pavements using Asphalt Concrete (AC) overlays consistently confronts the reflection cracking challenge, where inherent cracks and joints from an existing pavement layer are mirrored in the new overlay. To address this issue, the current study evaluates the effectiveness of Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) and geotextile fabric as mitigation strategies. ECC, characterized by its tensile ductility, fracture resistance, and high deformation capacity, was examined in interlayer thicknesses of 7, 12, and 17 mm. Additionally, the impact of geotextile fabric positioning at the base and at 1/3 depth of the AC specimen was explored. Utilizing the Overlay Testing Machine (OTM) for evaluations, the research d
... Show MoreA simple, precise, rapid, and accurate reversed – phase high performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the determination of guaifenesin in pure from pharmaceutical formulations.andindustrial effluent. Chromatography was carried out on supelco L7 reversed- phase column (25cm × 4.6mm), 5 microns, using a mixture of methanol –acetonitrile-water: (80: 10 :10 v/v/v) as a mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 ml.min-1. Detection was performed at 254nm at ambient temperature. The retention time for guaifenesin was found 2.4 minutes. The calibration curve was linear (r= 0.9998) over a concentration range from 0.08 to 0.8mg/ml. Limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification ( LOQ) were found 6µg/ml and 18µg/ml res
... Show MoreAn experiment was carried out evaluate the performance of RAU combined equipment under three levels of practical speed, (V1) 4.06 km. h-1, (V2) 4.43 km. hr-1 and (V3) 5.76 km. hr-1, and three levels of depth with 10,20and 30 cm. It is denoted by D1, D2, D3 respectively. A split plot design was used within the RCBD design with three replications. The experiment results showed that the first practical speed 4.06 km.hr-1 achieved the lowest slippage percentage from 9.61%, lowest traction power 14.65hp, lowest soil penetration resistance to1.34 kg.cm-2, and the highest total operating