Ultrathin porous pavement made with high viscosity asphalt rubber binder: A better acoustic absorption?

This work presents a non-destructive technique applied to ultrathin porous asphalt pavements that allows us to characterize their internal structure. Comparison between acoustic absorption data from experimental tests with an impedance tube and analytical simulation leads to an optimization of intrinsic parameters, such as tortuosity, airflow resistivity and porosity. The studied ultrathin specimens are of a high air void content porous mixture made with conventional polymer modified bituminous binder and high viscosity rubber binder. It has been found that one of the studied mixtures presents less air void content than specified by the manufacturer, and thus absorbs less noise as foreseen. Finally, in this case it appears that using a high viscosity asphalt rubber binder has no influence on maximum acoustic absorption but on the frequency of appearance of this maximum, tortuosity and airflow resistivity.