Microsurfacing Pavement Solutions with Alternative Aggregates and Binders: A Full Surface Texture Characterization

The road surface texture is responsible for controlling several quality/safety road indicators, such as friction, noise, and fuel consumption. Road texture can be classified into different wavelengths, and it is dependent on the material used in the paving solution. With the aim of evaluating and characterizing the surface texture of a microsurfacing road pavement, six microsurfacing samples were made in the laboratory with both traditional materials (basaltic aggregates and bituminous emulsion) and with innovative materials from recycling procedures (crumb rubber (CR) and artificial engineered aggregate (AEA)). The characterization was performed through the use of a conoscopic holography profilometer with high precision and post-processing of the profiles detected through consolidated algorithms (ISO standards). We found that the aggregate type plays a very important role in the pavement texture. The binder agent seems to be highly important, but more studies regarding this are necessary. The use of crumb rubber as an aggregate proved to be feasible, and the texture parameters that were obtained were in accordance with the benchmark ones. In addition, the study shows that the use of artificial engineered aggregates does not impair the surface texture. Finally, the use of the texture parameters defined by the ISO standards, together with a statistical analysis, could be useful for defining the surface texture characteristics of microsurfacing.