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Biography
Mr. Yongping Hu currently is a full-time Ph.D. student at the Nottingham Transportation Engineering Center (NTEC) of University of Nottingham. He graduated from Highway School at Chang'an University in China, where he obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in 2018 and 2021, respectively. After that, he went to the UK and started his Ph.D. study under the funding named China Scholarship Council for Research Excellence. His research interests include the aging and rejuvenation of bitumen, the adhesion and cohesion failure mechanism between bitumen and minerals, the advanced functional materials used in pavement, the modeling of bitumen and asphalt mixture.
Research Summary
Aging of bituminous binders is one of the most important factors leading to the deterioration of service performance of asphalt pavement. Reclaiming aged bitumen is an efficient way to save the costs… read more
Current Research
Aging of bituminous binders is one of the most important factors leading to the deterioration of service performance of asphalt pavement. Reclaiming aged bitumen is an efficient way to save the costs of highway maintenance, as well as to reduce the carbon emission to make an eco-friendly sustainability. This study aims at disclosing the mechanism of the aging behaviour of bitumen in terms of rheological properties, chemical properties, and the micro-morphology. Then, the rejuvenation of aged bitumen will be investigated, which includes the diffusion of rejuvenators into the aged binders, the multiple scale evaluations and the adhesion between binders and aggregates. Finally, it is expected to establish a specification for the rejuvenation efficiency.
Firstly, multiple virgin bitumen (neat, SBS modified and crumb rubber modified) will be aged by laboratory experiments such as RTFOT and PAV, and the properties of different bitumen, both virgin and aged, with different components, will be compared in terms of rheological properties, characteristic functional groups and the micro-morphology by DSR, BBR, TLC-FID, FTIR and SEM et al. Also, the bitumen will be divided into maltene (even saturates, aromatics and resins) and asphaltene and to be further studied. Next, the aged bitumen will be rejuvenated by different rejuvenators, both bio-based, petroleum-based, and self-made, and (E)SEM will be employed to observe the interface between the aged bitumen and rejuvenators. Then, the bitumen will undergo several cycles of aging and rejuvenation, so that its mechanism will be detected, and the performance deterioration and restoration laws are expected to be revealed. Afterwards, numerical investigation will be applied into bitumen aging and rejuvenation. Finally, bitumen aging and rejuvenation will be incorporated into bitumen-mineral adhesion to further reveal its actual road performance. Several fatigue tests, pull-off tests and other tests will be conducted and the specification of rejuvenation of bitumen will be established.
Past Research
- PI of "Light Shielding Premaintence Agent for Asphalt Pavement in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau". Funded by Graduate Research Innovation and Development Fund of Chang'an University
- Participant of "Key Technologies for Maintaining Service Performance of Asphalt Pavement in Tibet" . Funded by Science and Technology of Tibet Autonomous Region
- Participant of "Multi-dimensional Characterization of Aged Asphalt and Multi-component Rejuvenators". Funded by Guangxi Transportation Science and Technology Group Co., Ltd.
- Participant of "Infrared Shielding and Heat Insulation Performance of Modified Asphalt With Non-integral Tungsten" .Funded by Science and Technology of Shaanxi Province
Future Research
Mechanism and Treatment of Fatigue Damage of Asphalt Mixture
Adhesion amd Cohesion of Bitumen/Mineral
Chemical Makeup of bitumen
Advanced Functional Materials for Asphalt Pavement
Molecular Dynamic Modelling of Bitumen and Minerals