ABSTRACT
Induction assisted chemical hardening (curing) or induction hardening is a novel in situ hardening technique for thermoset modified bituminous materials that maintains most of the advantages of natural chemical hardening while eliminating the possible restrictions of longer curing times at lower temperatures. In particular, induction heating can be utilized to accelerate the polymerization of thermoset modified bituminous paving mixes in which inductive particles are added. In this study, steel fibres are dispersed in a thermoset bituminous system and during exposure to an alternating magnetic field, they are induction heated leading to a more rapid initiation of the polymerization. The non-isothermal hardening performance of fast reacting thermoset-bitumen is modelled during the thermoset crosslinking. The model can also be utilized to predict reaction kinetics and viscosity evolution in this material, thereby indicating that induction hardening represents a reliable polymerization method and can be utilized to cure thermoset bituminous materials.
