Crushed rock treated with anionic bituminous emulsion for construction of unsealed roads in Australia with enhanced long-term performance

One of the innovative applications of bituminous emulsions is their use in unsealed road construction and rehabilitation by merging with crushed rock, producing a composite material with enhanced rutting resistance and dust suppression qualities. In this study, a series of wheel tracking (WT) tests and constant lateral stiffness tests (CLST) using a precision unbound material analyser (PUMA) were conducted on crushed rock treated with bituminous emulsion (CR-BE) to examine the efficiency of the composite. The results from the WT tests showed that treaded tires result in a higher degree of rutting compared to smooth tires, while still being lesser in magnitude in CR-BE compared to untreated crushed rock. CR-BE with 3% bituminous emulsion had the lowest rutting. The rutting data from WT tests were used to analyse the permanent deformation data from CLST tests.