MATEC Web of Conferences 162, 01046 (2018) https://doi.org/10.

1051/matecconf/201816201046
BCEE3-2017

Effects of waste PVC addition on the properties of (40-50) grade

asphalt
Nawal Salman1,* and Zeena Jaleel1
1Building and Construction Engineering Department, University of Technology, Baghdad, Iraq

Abstract. Disposal of plastic waste poses a serious threat nowadays. Effective solutions are required to
reduce or eliminate this problem. One of these solutions is to use these materials in asphalt mixtures. PVC
(Poly Vinyl Chloride) during melting has adhesive properties which can be used with asphalt to reduce the
bitumen mixture costs. Investigation of physical characteristics of asphalt cement (40-50) mixed with PVC
is presented in this paper. The main objective is to study the change in bitumen properties after mixing with
PVC of percent (2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12 and 15) % by weight of bitumen. Penetration, ductility, loss on heating,
softening point, flash and fire tests were conducted for each percent. It is concluded that penetration
decreases by 62.8% on addition of 15% PVC. Ductility also drops when PVC dosage increases. Softening
point increases when PVC dosage increases by 6 % for 15% PVC.

1 Introduction the study concluded that polyethylene modifier up to 10

There is an urgent requirement to improve the road % and PVC up to 7.5 %, can be used for flexible
performance in view of the increase in traffic volume on pavement construction".
roads and overloading of transport vehicles along with Chavan [4] utilized waste plastic bags in coating the
an absence of effective legislation to protect the aggregate then used in the asphalt mixture to enhance
highways, and also due to the significant difference in properties of asphalt mix besides solving the plastic
temperatures during day and night and across seasons. waste problems"
Hence the need to improve the properties of asphalt Gawandea etal. [5] Reviewed developed techniques to
material. Population increase and industrial growth use plastic wastes for construction of flexible pavement.
throughout the world result in creation and production of Bitumen material can be modified by using plastic
new types of non-biodegradable plastic waste. Recent waste, so the modified mixture can be used on the
studies have shown that plastic waste can stay on earth wearing surface of the pavement. The modified mixtures
for 4500 years unchanged and without degradation. [1] show good stability, flow and moisture resistance.
In order to reduce pollution due to plastic waste an Jassim et al. [6], investigated stability of Marshall and
effective solution for recycling must be found. One such retained strength index to evaluate plastic waste particles
solution is the use of plastic waste materials in flexible properties such as thickness, size and content percent.
pavement mixture. This process can reduce the cost of Basis results of the tests, it was found that the plastic
construction. The use of plastic wastes with asphalt waste reduced to a thin size of fine particles, thin
mixture in pavement construction is not a new work. The thickness resulted in developing stability of Marshall and
idea began to spread across the world in the last two water resistance to damage, and could also solve
decades, where researchers have put together various environmental problems.
ideas and researches to find alternatives to the use of
plastic waste with asphalt.
Rajasekaran et al. [2] investigated possibility of
2. Materials
Polyethylene polypropylene polystyrene in coating
aggregate, which is showing better aggregate properties
that can be used in flexible pavement construction. 2.1 Asphalt material
Marshall Mix sample prepared using the coated
aggregate. Marshall Stability improve in range of (18- The asphalt material used for this study is (40-50)
20) kN. This process is environment friendly and helps penetration graded bitumen, which is supplied by Al-
reduce costs. Dura refinery in Baghdad city. Al-Dura refinery
Rahman et al. [3] used two types of plastic waste, produces asphalt cement graded from refined crude oil
polyethylene and PVC to improve asphalt mixture petroleum, which is used for pavement construction.
properties using Marshall Mix design. The tests includes Usually the penetration graded asphalt classified to (40-
measurement of unit weight, stability, flow, and V.T.M,

*
Corresponding author: [email protected]
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
MATEC Web of Conferences 162, 01046 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201816201046
BCEE3-2017

50), (50-60), (60-70), (85-100), (120-150), (200-300).

Standard ASTM tests were performed on the original Table 3. Waste Plastic & its Source [1]
bitumen getting the following properties shown in Table
1.
Table 1. Test Results for the Origin Bitumen Material

Property Unit ASTM Test SCRB

s Designation Results Specification
Penetration 0.1 D-5-86 43 40-50
at 25 0C mm
,100 gm ,5
sec.
Flash point 0C D-92 342 Min.232 PVC is a polymer having only aliphatic (linear) carbon
Fire point 0C D-92 345 - atoms in their backbone chains. [8]. Table (4) shows
Softening 0C D-36-86 52.5 (51-62) some of physical properties for PVC. [8]
point
Ductility at cm D-113-79 105 >100 Table 4. Physical Properties for PVC
25 0C , 5
cm /min. Tensile Flexural Thermal
Density Elongation
Loss on % D-1754-83 0.3 0.75 % strength Modulus coefficient
gm/cm3 at break %
heating (% MPa GPa expansion
max.) 1.3-1.6 40-50 2-80 2.1-3.4 80*10-6

2.2 Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) PVC is chemically resistant to acids, salts, bases, fats,
and alcohols. It is also resistant to some solvents for
Plastic waste may be grouped depending on their example, PVC is resistant to fuel and some paint
physical properties to thermoplastic and thermosetting thinners. Some solvents may only swell it or deform it
materials. Thermoplastic materials can be formed into but not dissolve it, but some of them like tetrahydrofuran
any desired shape under the effect of pressure and heat. or acetone, may damage it. [8]
Thermoplastic materials become solid when cooled.
Some examples of thermoplastic and thermosetting 3 Plastic PVC preparation
materials are tabulated below in Table 2. [1]. Plastics can
also be classified according to their chemical sources.
According to sources of plastic, there are six types: PVC collected from factories which produce PVC doors
Cellulose Plastics, Synthetic Resin Plastics, Protein and windows to house construction. The plastic waste is
Plastics, Natural Resins, Elastomers and Fibres. Table 3 cleaned well to ensure no unwanted material.
gives the source of waste plastic generation. [1]. The
essential raw materials for PVC are derived from salt 3.1 PVC Shredding
and oil. PVC is manufactured from two starting
materials;
Shredding is cutting the PVC into small particle sizes
• 57% of the molecular weight derived from common between 2.5 to 3.0 mm by shredding machine from the
salt seller where the waste PVC supplied.
• 43% derived from hyrdocarbon feedstocks
(increasingly ethylene from sugar crops is also being
3.2 Preparation of blend
used for PVC production as an alternative to ethylene
from oil or natural gas). [7] First step to mix PVC with asphalt was heating the PVC
particles until they soften then added to hot asphalt. It
Table 2. Typical Thermoplastic and Thermosetting Resins [1] was found that PVC particles soften at (180-200) ᵒC.
This process would fail if the PVC particles are gathered
and clustered. Particles were added gradually to hot
asphalt of (180-200) Cᵒ. PVC mixed with percent of (2.5,
5, 7.5, 10, 12, and 15) % by weight of bitumen until
plastic waste mixture with bitumen became
homogeneous. Figure (1) shows the shredded PVC.
Figure (2) shows mixing process with bitumen.

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MATEC Web of Conferences 162, 01046 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201816201046
BCEE3-2017

Figure (4) shows the relation between Ductility and

PVC percent. Penetration and ductility values decrease
with the increase in dosage of PVC. Plastic materials are
organic polymers which are usually solid so penetration

Fig. 1. Shredded PVC Fig. 2. Mix PVC with Bitumen

4 Experimental works
Standard ASTM tests were conducted for the PVC and
asphalt cement mixture. These tests included penetration, Fig. 3. Relation between Penetration and PVC
ductility loss on heating, softening point, flash and fire
test. PVC added to (40-50) graded asphalt with percent
of (2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12 and 15) by weight of bitumen. Test
results are shown in Table (5). Penetration Index (P.I)
also calculated for each percent to detect asphalt
temperature susceptibility. P.I calculated from equation
1:

(1)

Where: Fig. 4. Relation between Ductility and PVC

P.I = penetration index
Trb= softening point temperature The softening point increases with the increase in
Tpenteration= penetration temperature = 25ᵒ C percentage of PVC dosage because the bitumen becomes
P.I range from (-2, 2) which indicate normal temperature increasingly more brittle. Softening point of bitumen
susceptibility. P.I greater than 2 indicates low increase to 55.8 ᵒC by the addition of 15% PVC. It's
temperature susceptibility, while P.I less than -2 increased by 6 %. Figure (5) shows softening point with
indicates high temperature susceptibility. [9] PVC%. Penetration Index P.I was calculated for each
percent to detect temperature susceptibility for asphalt
material after adding PVC. The calculation results are
5 Results and Discussion illustrated in Table (5) which shows that penetration
The Penetration values decrease significantly when (40- index decreases with increase in PVC %. The
50) bitumen is mixed with the modifier (PVC). The penetration index from 2.5% to 12% indicate normal
original grade decreases by 62.8 % on adding 15 % of susceptibility to temperature, while at 15% PVC asphalt
PVC by weight of bitumen. Figure (3) shows the material become high susceptibility. Figure (6) shows
relationship between penetration and PVC content. It the relation between P.I and PVC%.
may be seen that the ductility values for bitumen Flash and fire points decrease with PVC increase, this
modified with 12 and 15 percent are very low compared can be shown in Figure (7). Flash point decreases from
to original binders. It drops from 105 cm to 16 cm at 15 345 ᵒ C to 286 ᵒ C when adding 15 % PVC, which meets
% PVC. The ductility values decrease with the increase the Iraqi standards that specifies minimum 232 ᵒ C as a
in percentage of modifier (PVC) because asphalt flash point. Flash point decreases by 23 %., while fire
becomes harder. point decrease by 22% on addition of 15 % PVC.
Table 5 Properties of Asphalt with PVC
Flash Penetration
PVC Penetration Ductility Softening Fire Loss on Penetration
point Index
% (1/10) mm cm Point Cᵒ point Cᵒ Heating Index
Cᵒ Reflection
0 43 105 52.5 342 345 0.3 -0.934 Normal
2.5 42 50 52.7 340 343 0.35 -0.937 Normal
5 40 30 53 337 340 0.4 -0.972 Normal
7.5 33 25 54 320 325 0.4 -1.14 Normal
10 27 20 54.5 300 308 0.4 -1.416 Normal
12 22 15 55.6 282 285 0.6 -1.552 Normal
15 16 13 55.8 263 268 0.8 -2.017 High
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MATEC Web of Conferences 162, 01046 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201816201046
BCEE3-2017

2. Ductility value decreased with increase in PVC

dosage. Ductility value dropped from 105 cm
with 0 % PVC to 16 cm on adding 15 % PVC.
3. Softening point increased with the increase in
PVC dosage. It increased by 6 % on adding 15
% PVC.
4. Penetration Index (P.I) decreased with an
increase in PVC dosage. With PVC percent of
(5, 7.5, 10, 12) % asphalt cement has normal
Fig. 5. Relation between Softening Point & PVC
susceptibility to temperature, while with PVC
dosage of 15 % the asphalt cement becomes
highly susceptible to temperature.
5. Flash point decreased by 23 % when PVC %
dosage increased.
6. Fire point decreased by 22 % when PVC %
dosage increased.
7. Loss on heating value increased from (0.3 to
0.6) % when PVC dosage increased. 15 % PVC
Fig. 6. Relation between P.I & and PVC
recorded 0.8% loss on heating value which is
outside the range of the specifications.

7 Recommendations

Further research may be carried out on softer grade of

asphalt like (85-100), (120-150) and also on other types
of PVC like plastic bottles, carrying bags, pipes…… etc.

Fig.7. Relation between Flash & Fire Point & PVC

References
Loss on heating test shows convergent results, at 2.5 % 1. Indian Roads Congress, (2013).
of PVC the loss was 0.35 %, at (5, 7.5, 10) the loss value 2. S.Rajasekaran1, R. Vasudevan, S. Paulraj, AJER e-
was 0.4%, at 12 % the loss was 0.6 %, all these results ISSN: 2320-0847 p - ISSN: 2320-0936, 2, 11, 01-
meet the Iraqi standards which permits maximum loss 13, (2013).
value as 0.75 %. The last percent of PVC % (15) 3. Md. N. Rahman, M. Ahmeduzzaman, M. A.
recorded 0.8% loss value, which was out of the range of Sobhan, T. U. Ahmed, AJCEA, 1, 5, 97-102, (2013).
specification. Figure (8) represents the loss on heating
4. A. J. Chavan1, (IJAIEM), 2, 4, April (2013).
value.
5. A. Gawandea, G. Zamarea, V.C. Rengea, S. Taydea,
and G. Bharsakaleb, JERS, 3, 2, (2012).
6. H. M. Jassim , O. T. Mahmood , S. A. Ahmed,
(IJETT), 7 , 1 , (2014).
7. http://www.bpf.co.uk/plastipedia/polymers/PVC
8. https://www.britannica.com/science/plastic
9. J. Read, D. Whiteoak, The Sell Bitumen Handbook,
Sixth Edition, Shell Bitumen, UK, (2015).

Fig. 8. PVC% with Loss on Heating Value

6 Conclusions
This study investigates the use of PVC with bitumen as
additives to study the change in physical properties of
(40-50) graded asphalt. From the experimental work, the
following can be concluded:

1. Penetration decreased by 62.8 % on addition of

15 % PVC. Generally asphalt became harder
with the increase of PVC dosage.
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