Investigation of Rutting Failure in Asphalt Mixtures and Its Improvement Strategies

In recent years, due to reduced service life of road pavement and a significant increase in maintenance costs, roads to meet the needs, including transportation without delay in commercial and industrial products, reduced maintenance costs, safety, and good ride quality. Their pavement requires better performance and is more resistant to various damages such as rutting, cracking, stripping, and so on. Each of these failures is caused by different mechanisms in the pavement, and factors such as the properties of asphalt mixtures, bitumen, weather conditions, and traffic loading intensify and develop these failures. In recent years, researchers have developed various methods and strategies to improve the performance of pavements against rutting failure. In this study, different approaches to enhance the performance of asphalt pavement against rutting failures such as correction of aggregate grading and improvement of aggregate interlocking, use of additives and modifiers, use of semi-flexible pavement systems, and use of reclaimed asphalt pavement were investigated, and compared. Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages of each method were explained in detail. Overall, the results of this study and comparison showed that using various additives and modifiers and recycled asphalt pavement under special and controlled conditions can improve pavement performance against rutting failure.