Enhanced Compaction to Improve Durability and Extend Pavement Service Life

A review of several past studies clearly shows the effect of reduced air voids on improved fatigue and rutting performance of asphalt mixtures, both in the laboratory and field. Depending on mix type and experiment (which included constant-stress bending beam fatigue testing and field results from WesTrack), fatigue performance improved between 8.2 and 43.8% with a 1% decrease in air voids. Likewise, based on rutting results from WesTrack and laboratory flow number testing, rutting resistance improved by 7.3 to 66.3% with a 1% decrease in air voids depending on mix type and analysis. The results of a recent study conducted for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, which included data from 55 pavement sections, also suggest that a 1% decrease in in-place air voids increases asphalt mixture service life by conservatively 10%.