Self-healing of asphalt material

Roads that themselves can prevent micro-cracks to results into macro-cracks would significantly enhance the sustainability of asphaltic pavements and reduce the need for ad-hoc repair measures. Though the self-healing capacity of some bitumen is a known property, its physical understanding or cause is still very unclear. The goal of this research effort is to create a better understanding of this intrinsic property to the extend that pavement engineers and materials manufacturers would be able to optimize and design for enhanced self-healing. The projects within this field of research are exploring the phenomenon on various scales both within its test methods (from Neutron Scattering and Imaging techniques to Atomic Force Microscopy to meso-scale mechanical tests) as well as its modeling techniques (e.g phase-field modeling, micro-mechanical FE simulations and meso/macro scale modeling).