Thermal degradation of geosynthetics used in flexible pavements with hot mix asphalt
Geosynthetic; Hot mix asphalt; Installation damage; Thermal degradation; Mechanical damage.
The road modal is responsible for a large part of the transport of cargo and people, therefore, keeping pavements in good condition implies benefits for the economy and for users. A solution adopted to reduce and delay the reflection of cracks is the use of geosynthetics, however these materials can be damaged during the installation process. Thus, this research aims to verify the thermal and mechanical degradation suffered by two different geocomposites used in asphalt resurfacing, in addition to verifying if there is an improvement in this analysis with the use of aluminum foil. Thus, before the hot mix asphalt was deposited on the samples and compacted, half the area of each sample was covered with aluminum foil. For analysis, the samples, classified into three categories: virgin, with damage, with damage and presence of aluminum foil, were submitted to the uniaxial tensile test according to ASTM D6637. The results showed that there was a reduction in tensile strength of 19.71% for the fiberglass geocomposite and 64.36% for the PVA geocomposite. It was possible to conclude that the process of installing geosynthetics in asphalt resurfacing is an aggressive procedure, but that the severity of the damage depends on the type of geosynthetic used, and that the placement of aluminum foil in the process does not bring benefits.