Cold Mix Asphalt and Its Mix Parameters

In a developing country like India we can observe cold mix technology is lagging behind in both research and application fields. It is our primary motivation underlying selection of cold mix technology as the present research area. Though, it has economical and environmental advantages over the hot mixes. But upto now there is no universally adopted cold mix design method. Due to this deformity in the laboratory cold mix design procedures followed by different organization/researchers/agencies. So it is difficult to form reliable correlation and to have a comparative study between experimental results reported by them. So the objective of this project work is aimed to select important mix parameters and determine their effect on cold mix asphalt. The mix parameters selected for the present work are (i) method of compaction, (ii) level of compaction, (iii) additives and (iv) aggregate gradation. The first three parameters are selected for their importance as presented in a number of previous research works. And the last one has been selected nowhere in literature much attention has been paid to the aggregate gradation which is very important of the compacted mix. All the mix parameters have been selected to assess the effect on Marshall properties of CMA mixture. First a suitable experimental methodological work has been prepared and then the effects of selected mix parameters on performance of compacted mix are studied. And a comparative study for the above results has been done on the basis of Marshall stability and air void content of the cold mix. By studying all the selected mix parameters, it is observed that in case of gyratory compaction the air void range 3–5% could be achieved. All mix parameters has contributed to increase the Marshall Stability of cold mixes butcement and developed gradations has also shown more significant increase in stability of cold mixes.