Monotonic and cyclic behaviour of polymer-modified bitumens

The monotonic, recovery and cyclic behaviours of two polymer-modified bitumens (TS and DM), which are blended with a styrene-butadiene-styrene triblock copolymer (SBS) are investigated over a wide range of strain-rates, stresses and temperatures. An extensive set of experiments were performed on one of the bitumens (TS) including monotonic constant strain-rate and constant stress tests, continuous cyclic and pulse train tests. The response of this bitumen over the wide range of temperatures and loading conditions considered was seen to be well described by a phenomenological model proposed by [OSS 03]. The model of [OSS 03] was calibrated for the other polymer-modified bitumen (DM) using just four tensile tests as suggested by [OSS 03] and was found to adequately capture the pulse strain response of this polymer-modified bitumen.