Toward a new experimental method for measuring coalescence in bitumen emulsions: A study of two bitumen droplets

• A new experimental method to study coalescence of two bitumen droplets is presented.
• The developed test procedure is a novel state of art, quite simple and repeatable.
• It is possible to study the coalescence process in bitumen emulsions on a large scale.
• This method will serve its widespread applicability in cold mix asphalt technology.

Cold mix asphalt (CMA) emulsion technology could become an attractive alternative for the road industry due to low startup and equipment installation costs, diminished energy consumption and reduced environmental impact. The performance of cold asphalt mixtures produced from emulsions is strongly influenced by a good control of the breaking and coalescence process. The wetting of bitumen on the surface of the aggregates is hereby of major importance for the performance of the asphalt. Premature coalescence of the bitumen emulsions away from the surface, could lead to poor adhesion and decreased mechanical strength of the asphalt. Today, the breaking and coalescence mechanisms of bitumen emulsions are still not fully understood due to their complexities and the lack of fundamental experimental methods and existing models. However, in the past years efforts have been made in defining relationships for understanding the bitumen emulsions. In this paper, a new experimental method is presented to study coalescence of bitumen by using shape relaxation of bitumen droplets in an emulsion environment. The coalescence of spherical droplets of different bitumen have been correlated with neck growth, densification and surface area change during the coalescence process. The test protocol was designed in a controlled climate chamber, to study the coalescence process with varying environmental conditions. The kinetics of the relaxation process was influenced by the temperature as well as other parameters. The research showed that the developed test procedure is repeatable and able to study the coalescence process on a larger scale. However, the relationship between the measured parametric relationships at the larger scale and the bitumen emulsion scale still needs further investigation.

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