Rheological Characteristic of Petroleum Asphalt Binder Modified by Natural Nano Silica and Nano Fly ash

Nano materials have unique characteristics that can improve the performance of asphalt mixture and one of the most commonly used nano material. Natural nano silica was used, which was processed from quartz sand and added to the binder by substituting the total weight of the binder. Nano-sized fly ash was obtaining from a mechanical approach or top-down method. The aim of this study was to identify the effect of addition of nano silica and nano fly ash to asphalt binder in terms of the rheological characteristics. That was determined by dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) test and it was conducted in the original and aging conditions. In addition, the DSR test was arranged by frequency sweep on the controlled asphalt specimens. The specimens were prepared by 1% and 2% of nano silica and 1% of nano fly ash, that was used as a comparison to nano silica. Depending the results, it was an increase of the complex modulus (G*) of asphalt binder with 1% nano silica. Likewise, an increase of rutting parameters is obtained with compared to the same value of controlled asphalt. As a conclusion, the nano silica and nano fly ash have a potential application to improve the asphalt performance.