New method to estimate the “re-activated” binder amount in recycled hot-mix asphalt

The magnitude of the binder re-activation within the reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) fraction is a major concern when recycled hot-mix asphalt (HMA) is produced, since it directly affects the final performance of the mix. Currently, no reliable methods to predict the RAP binder re-activation are available and the lack of such information prevents the quantification of the proper amount of virgin binder to be added to the recycled HMA.This study proposes a new method to estimate the re-activated binder amount based on the surface area (SA) of RAP aggregates. Laboratory results demonstrated the effectiveness of the SA approach in the case of RAP amounts typically used for hot-recycled HMA. Moreover, the experimental investigation suggested that revised coefficients are needed for the evaluation of the SA to account for the presence of clumps when high amounts of fine RAP aggregates are used.