چكيده لاتين
The performance of asphalt pavements is constantly influenced by mechanical and environmental factors, with distresses such as rutting, creep, and fatigue cracking being the most critical threats to their long-term durability. In order to enhance structural integrity and extend the service life of flexible pavements, the use of additives—particularly fibers—has gained considerable attention in recent years. Among different types of fibers, recycled tire fibers have emerged as a sustainable and effective option due to their desirable mechanical strength, thermal stability, and the potential benefits of recycling waste materials. These fibers can form a reinforcing network within the asphalt mastic, thereby improving cohesion, reducing binder drain-down, and enhancing stress distribution at the aggregate–binder interface. Consequently, they play a significant role in reducing permanent deformations.
In this study, Stone Matrix Asphalt (SMA) mixtures were prepared with four different fiber contents (0%, 0.1%, 0.2%, and 0.3% by weight of aggregates). The samples were evaluated through a series of mechanical tests, including Marshall stability and flow, creep, rutting, resilient modulus, and indirect tensile strength (ITS). The experimental results revealed that while the influence of fibers on certain parameters such as Marshall stability and resilient modulus was rather limited, the fibers had a significant effect on enhancing tensile strength, reducing rut depth, and increasing the number of load cycles sustained before creep failure. Particularly, mixtures containing 0.2% tire fibers exhibited the most balanced performance, combining improved mechanical strength with adequate mixture homogeneity, and thus were identified as the optimum dosage.
Overall, the findings confirmed that incorporating recycled tire fibers not only improves the performance and durability of SMA mixtures but also provides an environmentally sustainable and economically viable approach to managing waste tire materials. These results can serve as a practical basis for engineering decisions in the design and maintenance of heavily trafficked asphalt pavements.
