Glass transitions in bituminous binders

The RILEM TC 272 PIM (Phase and Interphase behavior of innovative bituminous Materials)—TG1 Binder has initiated an inter-laboratory program investigating the phase and interphase behaviour of bituminous binders. Within the scope, four laboratories evaluated the low temperature properties of seven binders with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). DSC has been accepted as a powerful tool to evaluate, among others, the glass transitions, Tg, monitoring the endothermic or exothermic heat flow of a material under controlled temperature conditions. There are different ways to run the test, conventional temperature linear-DSC (TL-DSC), and temperature modulation-DSC (TM-DSC). The latter has been proven as an efficient method differentiating the structural relaxation phenomena from the heat capacity. In this study, emphasis was placed on comparing the Tg measured by TL- and TM-DSC to improve the interpretation of binder glass transitions. In this study, the scope was restrained to two Polymer modified Binders (PmBs): a commercially available modified binder named PmB1 and a highly modified binder (7.5 wt% high vinyl SBS) named PmB2, were evaluated and compared with two neat bituminous binders. Based on the thermographs of the PmB2 obtained through this inter-laboratory program, it was observed that the modification by 7.5% SBS resulted in a decrease of the Tg. This reduction of Tg reflects the positive influence of SBS at low temperatures.