Properties of Recovered Asphalt Binder Blended with Waste Engine Oil: A Preliminary Study

It is universally known that the use of recovered binder in asphalt pavements results in a stiffer asphalt mixture. One sustainable material that holds immense potential in softening the stiffened mixture is waste engine oil. Large quantities of the waste engine oil on pavements are undesirable due to the damage it imposes on the asphalt pavement. However, small amounts of the waste oil within the binder and mixture may improve the recovered binder's performance characteristics since the stiffer asphalt may be softened. The objective of this paper is to characterize the effects that waste engine oil has on binders blended with aged bitumen, such as asphalt binder from reclaimed asphalt pavements (RAP). This paper will present the results of blended aged asphalt binder with virgin binder, and subsequently combine the mixture with waste oil. After the addition of the waste engine oil, the G*/Sin(δ) parameter is analyzed which indicated that the asphalt became softer. The viscosity decreased with the addition of waste engine oil. The use of waste engine oil may therefore create conditions of better thermal cracking (low-temperature) behavior and allow for easy mixing, handling and compaction.