Laboratory research on road performances of unsaturated polyester concrete at medium-high temperature

Abstract Unsaturated polyester resin (UP) and aggregate can synthesize unsaturated polyester resin concrete (UPC) with high performance, which was often used to fill materials and wear layers. However, the UP contained in UPC was usually high, resulting in high engineering cost. At the same time, there is less researches on the direct use of UPC as a paving material. In this paper, the Marshall mix design procedure was used to design UPC, and the road performance of UPC at medium-high temperature were studied. The aging test, Marshall test, the water immersion Marshall test, and the rutting test were performed to observe the road indicators of the UPC. At the same time, the uniaxial creep test and the indirect tensile test at different temperatures were carried out to observe the performances change of UPC with temperature. Results showed that UPC had a better water-resistance ability than that of asphalt mixture (AC) under the coupling effects of high temperature and water. Besides, the dynamic stability (DS) values of UPC were higher than that of asphalt mixture. However, UPC had a lower residual strain rate and creep rate relative to the asphalt mixture. The bonding effect of the UPC was better than that of the asphalt mixture at high temperature from the indirect tensile test results. High-temperature aging had a visible deteriorating impact on the high-temperature performance of asphalt mixture. As the UP is a thermosetting resin, UPC had excellent high-temperature durability. With the aging time increasing, the mechanical properties of UPC gradually decreased, but its mechanical properties were still superior to asphalt mixtures under the same aging conditions.