Improvising the Quality of Asphalt Mix Using Marle Dust and Banana Fiber

Abstract

Bituminous mix is a mixture of coarse  aggregate, fine aggregate and filler. Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA)  is a type of bituminous mix in which all particles are mixed  and compacted at high degree of temperature. HMA is  available in two forms namely dense graded and Stone  Matrix Asphalt (SMA), formally is known as Bituminous  Concrete (BC) and second one is known as gap graded. SMA  needs additional fiber to minimize the drainage through the  material. In this research, an effort has been made to enhance  the stability of SMA by using banana fiber as a filler agent  along with binder content (BC). The mixture has been  prepared as per the MORTH specification. The grade of  bitumen used in this research work is VG-30. The percentage  of BC and fiber content is varied from 4.8 % to 6.4 % and  from 0 % to 0.8 %. A number of tests have been performed  on the marble dust to check its properties. As per the test  analysis, Marble dust is used to find out Optimum Binder  Content (OBC) and has been used for the mixture with an  average value determined as 5.5 %. After adding 5.5 % of  BC into the bitumen along with different percentage of  banana fiber such as 0 %, 0.2 %, 0.4 %, 0.6 % and 0.8 %.  The experiments has been performed on five different  samples and tests values in terms of stability, flow value, Air  Void (VA) and Void in Mineral Aggregate (VMA) have  been measured. From the experiment it has been observed  that banana fiber enhances the stability of the mixed sample.