Investigation of the cold behaviour of bitumen becomes more efficient through newly developed test method
The aim of the research project was the development of a test method which allows the characterisation of the binder properties of bitumen in the low temperature range in a reliable process and with moderate testing effort. The Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) commissioned the Chair of Highway and Road Engineering at the Ruhr University in Bochum with this task. From a scientific point of view, the two intensively investigated test variants can be regarded as equivalent. On the basis of the evaluation criteria applied, especially with regard to better applicability in practice, the shear relaxation test (SRV) is to be preferred to the cold test with the 4 millimetre plate-plate geometry (PP04). The required necessary properties of a test method for the evaluation of the cold behaviour of bitumen are better fulfilled by the SRV.