Unravelling porous asphalt concrete with induction heating

• An unravelling porous asphalt was developed with induction heating.
• RSAT was used to study the effect of heating on ravelling of porous asphalt.
• Induction heating can greatly reduce the stone loss of porous asphalt.
• Induction heating should be applied at an early stage.

Ravelling is the main defect of porous asphalt pavement. An unravelling porous asphalt was developed in this research. Steel wool was added to porous asphalt concrete and induction heating was used to heal the cracks at early stage to prevent ravelling. In this paper, the mixing procedure was optimized to disperse steel wool into asphalt mixture, the induction heating potential of porous asphalt concrete containing steel wool was measured, and Rotating Surface Abrasion Test with rest periods to apply induction heating was employed to study the ravelling resistance improvement of porous asphalt concrete. It was found that porous asphalt concrete containing steel wool can be heated with induction energy and induction heating can greatly reduce the stone loss of porous asphalt concrete, despite when induction heating was applied. Porous asphalt suffered less ravelling damage when induction heating was applied at an earlier stage. It is concluded that unravelling porous asphalt can be achieved by applying induction heating and induction should be applied at an early stage.