Rubber modified asphalt pavement layer for noise and vibration absorption

Nowadays, a complex transportation network has been a symbol of urbanization development. Convenient transportation enriches people’s life. However, on one hand, traffic noise and vibrations from the transportation network are around everyone in the city, which affect the living condition of urban residents and could result in sleeping disorder. The induced vibration may cause some fatigue damage of surrounding (historic) buildings as well; on the other hand, the indirect impact of the more convenient transportation network is the recycling problem of end-of-life tires from increasing numbers of vehicles. In order to solve the above problems, this study is trying to refine and optimize a new noise and vibration absorbing system for road pavements while complying with the requirement of sustainability by the use of crumb rubber from end-of-life tires. This noise and vibration absorbing system is composed of a gap graded asphalt surface layer, containing a certain amount of crumb rubber, and a lower vibration-absorbing layer with higher damping property. The main objectivities of this study are to study the noise reduction mechanism of the surface layer, to design and evaluate the asphalt mixtures for the damping layer based on the mechanical and damping properties, and to optimize the pavement structure based on the functional and mechanical characteristics.