Cost-Effectiveness of Waste Polythene Bag Modified Asphalt Concrete Submerged In Moisture

C. G. Otto, K. I. Amadi-Oparaeli

Waste Polythene Bag, Cost-effectiveness

Fatigue distress is one of the major distress forms occurring in road flexible pavements. And water has been seen to facilitate this form of distress in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria as a result of submergence during the raining season. As a result engineers have done several research works to improve the fatigue performance of flexible pavement under this condition by the addition of some modifiers. In this study, Waste Polythene Bags (WPB) was used to modify asphaltic concrete in soaked and un-soaked conditions from 0 to 5days. A laboratory testing program was carried out on two mixtures: unmodified and WPB modified. The results from the laboratory tests and fatigue analysis indicated that the WPB modified mixtures had much longer fatigue cycles compared to the unmodified mixture in both soaked and un-soaked conditions. In addition a cost-effectiveness analysis study in respect to the fatigue performance on the two mixtures was carried out. Generally, the analysis exposed that the WPB modified asphalt mixture exhibited significantly a higher cost-effectiveness ratio of 1.52 times higher than the unmodified mixture in both conditions.