ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Marshall Method is the only standard test used in Cuba for design and evaluation of the asphalt mix properties. In spite of its numerous known limitations, as well as the advances in mix design in the world, the economic conditions of our country, have not allowed us the acquisition of the new equipment required for the mix design. The work exposes our development of solutions based in other laboratory test for complementing Marshall Method without big investments to give the necessary information of the behavior of the mixture in service. For the evaluation of the mechanical properties of the asphalt mix and their design, we use three equipment of common use in laboratories of construction materials, those are: a 50 kN Marshall press, a 400 kN compression hydraulic press of and Los Angeles Machine, with the incorporation of the Wheel Tracking Machine made in our Center according to the spanish specifications. The methodology of application of this combination of test for hot mix asphalt design is shown detailed with an example, based fundamentally in the execution of additional test to an interval of asphalts determined by Marshall Method from a diagram of bars, for finally determine the optimum asphalt content with bigger precision.The paper also exposes the need to correlate our methodology of laboratory test with the world advanced techniques for characterization of asphalt mixtures.
