Effect of Warm Mix Asphalt on Pavement Performance

This project will summarize the effects of Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) technologies in Texas. Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) has placed more than one million tons of WMA around the state, this research project will focus on evaluating WMA and its effects on asphalt mixture design performance. Asphalt offers environmental and energy advantages over other paving materials. However, in the midst of rising fuel costs and environmental awareness, this industry is always looking for ways to improve. WMA is fundamentally asphalt mixture with chemical additives to reduce viscosity, this translates to less heat usage when preparing the material while achieving the same product as Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) would make. Collected Data shows that there are several benefits of WMA compared to conventional asphalt mixtures. Thus, implementing WMA has spread throughout the state over the recent years. This project will discuss results from laboratory and field tests of WMA completed by TxDOT that investigates how WMA technologies affect long term roadway performance. Results were collected from WMA and HMA sections and assessed and compared for surface deterioration. It is confirmed that WMA sections performed similar or better to the HMA sections in connection with pavement durability.