ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Selecting appropriate experiments to measure the important parameters that define the behavior of bituminous materials is far from a trivial task. In most cases, testing and modeling go hand-in-hand, and one should be confident that the selected experiment is capturing the important parameters. At different stages of the investigation, different tests may be required. This paper is addressing some of the important issues and defines the differences between structural and material tests. The introduction of moisture in asphalt characterization tests is becoming a topic of increased interest in recent years. Using the ‘wrong’ conditioning procedure could result in misleading conclusions about the moisture susceptibility of the tested mixtures, which could lead to unexpected failures in the field. This paper is discussing some of the issues of moisture conditioning. The challenges involved with rotational tests, which are often used by pavement engineers, and the need to measure the behavior of mastics rather than neat bitumen are also discussed.
