Laboratory analysis of Marshall parameters of dense bituminous macadam mix using waste materials

Abstract

One of the main purposes of this research is to determine the effect of incorporating waste plastic bottles, i.e., polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and waste rubber tyres on the engineering properties of dense bituminous macadam mix. The strength, flow and volumetric properties of DBM mixes, which includes various percentages of plastic waste (4%, 6%, 8% and 10%) and rubber waste (5%, 10% and 15%) were calculated and assessed with laboratory tests. To analyse the effect on stability, flow and volumetric characteristics of DBM mix of waste plastic material and rubber tyres experiments were performed. Marshall tests were performed to estimate the strength and flow of the modified DBM mix. The experiments demonstrate that by partial replacement of 8% bitumen with plastic, about 15% increment in strength and by 10% replacement of bitumen with rubber material, about 49% increase in strength can be achieved as compared with a conventional mix.