Investigation of the effect of deicers on viscoelastic properties of asphalt mastics

Achieving perpetual pavements requires many factors, among which winter road maintenance is of great importance. In the past decades, the use of chemical deicers has been very common, but their use caused damage to many transportation infrastructures. In the present study, in order to investigate the effect of deicers on asphalt pavement, asphalt mastic samples were used due to their great influence on the viscoelastic characteristics of asphalt mixtures. The samples were conditioned for 96 hours at 60°C in solutions of distilled water, salt, Calcium magnesium acetate and Potassium acetate, and one sample was considered as a control, without conditioning. Then, all the samples were tested by frequency sweep test and the 2S2P1D viscoelastic model was fitted on the data. Analyzing the test results and model parameters showed that conditioning in brine solution softens the asphalt mastic samples. Calcium magnesium acetate increases the G* parameter at low loading frequencies (high temperatures). The effect of this deicer on the fatigue parameter is highly dependent on the loading frequency. The lower the loading frequency, the lower the mastic's resistance to fatigue failure. Potassium acetate increases the G* of mastic samples at medium and high temperatures. Also, all the deicers reduce the resistance of samples against rutting damage, and among them, Calcium magnesium acetate has the most damaging effect.