Comparative Analysis on the Effect of Asphalt Film Aging Test and Actual Production, Transportation and Paving on Asphalt Aging Degree

Degrees of aging on hot-mix asphalt mixture depend on the processes utilized on producing, transporting and paving operations. Rotated thin film oven (RTFOT) and/or thin film oven test (TFOT) tests were commonly used to determine the performance of asphalt aging in the laboratory. In this paper, the samples from the field (through actual mixing, transporting, and placing) were tested and compared with the samples from the lab (through RTFOT simulation). Through the analyses of the test results, it is concluded that the degrees of aging are much higher for asphalt samples from the field than those samples from lab aging simulations (i.e. RTFOT test).