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Demonstrates how different mineral fillers and nano-modifiers affect linear viscoelastic behavior in bitumen mastics, suggesting better pavement applications.
This study investigated the linear viscoelastic (LVE) behavior of nano-modified bitumen-filler mastics incorporating different mineral fillers and nano-additives. Bitumen-filler mastics were prepared using three commonly used mineral fillers—Granite Filler (GF), Limestone Filler (LSF), and Marble Powder Filler (MPF)—at varying filler-to-binder (F/B) ratios of 0.6, 0.8, and 1.2. To enhance the performance of these mastics, three nano-modifiers—nanoclay (NC), nano-silica (NS), and nano-titanium dioxide (NT)—were incorporated at a fixed dosage of 3% by binder weight. One viscosity grade (VG) bitumen binder i.e., VG40, was used. The rheological properties of the mastics were evaluated using a Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR) following EN 14770 standards. Amplitude sweep tests were performed to determine the LVE limits, followed by temperature-frequency sweeps across a temperature range of 15 °C to 70 °C and frequency range of 0.1–100 rad/s. The complex shear modulus (G*) and phase angle (δ) were obtained to characterize the viscoelastic performance. The LVE regime was compared against SHRP-defined limits for shear strain (γLVE) and shear stress (τLVE). The results indicated a consistent exponential decay in LVE strain with increasing G*, across all filler types, nano-modifiers, and F/B ratios. Among the nano-additives, nanoclay-modified mastics exhibited the most significant improvement in maintaining a broader LVE range, followed by nano-titanium and nano-silica. NT-modified mastics showed superior correlation with SHRP models in LSF and GF systems, whereas NC performed best in MPF systems. A generalized exponential relationship between G* and LVE strain was developed for all combinations, enabling to predict LVE-region and understand the viscoelastic behavior across a wide spectrum of bitumen-filler mastics. This study demonstrated the effectiveness of nano-modifiers in enhancing the stiffness and LVE performance of bituminous mastics for pavement applications.
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Harish et al. (2026) studied this question.
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