Balanced mix design (BMD) is an alternative concept for designing asphalt mixtures that mainly focuses on performance of mixtures rather than only volumetric analysis. Using this concept, it would be possible to account for the incorporation of recycled asphalt mixtures, warm technology, polymers, rejuvenators, and other foreign additives, as well as external effective factors on the mix design such as environmental effects. This project sought to investigate performance-based methodologies for the asphalt mix design by taking a step to develop a preliminary Nebraska BMD framework. With that, selection of appropriate performance tests, finding a functional laboratory aging protocol, and defining performance test criteria were the main long-term goals developed in this phase of study. To this end, three main types of distresses were taken into consideration (rutting, fatigue cracking, and moisture susceptibility), and a set of performance tests including well-established tests (Hamburg Wheel Track (HWT), Illinois Flexibility Index Test (I-FIT), Tensile Strength Ration (TSR)) and surrogate tests (IDEAL-RT, HT-IDT, G-stability, IDEAL-CT) were selected to capture these distresses on two types of high-performance commonly used asphalt mixtures in Nebraska (SLX and SPR). For the fatigue cracking analysis, long-term aging conditioning was conducted using two common aging protocols (NCHRP 09-54 and NCAT). Three types of data were utilized in this study including laboratory performance test results for the lab-compacted and field core specimens, as well as field data based on pavement surface condition monitoring. The validity of the surrogate performance tests was accomplished not only by correlating the field core results with field condition data, but also with correlating every individual surrogate test result to that of a well-established test. Further, the sensitivity, practicality, cost-effectiveness, and variability of different tests were assessed using statistical

Bituminous Mixtures and Pavements VIII contains 114 papers as presented at the 8th International Conference ‘Bituminous Mixtures and Pavements’ (8th ICONFBMP, 12-14 June 2024, Thessaloniki, Greece). The contributions reflect the research and practical experience of academics and practicing engineers from thirty-four (34) different countries, and cover a wide range of topics: Session I: Bitumen, Modified binders, Aggregates, and Subgrade Session II: Bituminous mixtures (Design, Construction, Testing, Performance) Session III: Pavements (Design, Construction, Maintenance, Sustainability, Energy and Environmental consideration) Session IV: Pavement management and Geosynthetics Session V: Pavement recycling Session VI: Pavement surface characteristics, Pavement performance monitoring, Safety Session VII: Biomaterials in pavement engineering Session VIII: Prediction models of pavement performance Bituminous Mixtures and Pavements VIII covers recent advances in highway materials technology and pavement engineering, and will be of interest to scientists and professionals involved or interested in these areas. The ICONFBMP-conferences have been organized every four years since 1992. This 8th conference was jointly organized by: Laboratory of Highway Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece; Built Environment Research Institute (BERI), University of Ulster, UK; University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA), USA; Laboratory for Advanced Construction Technology (LACT), Technological Institute of Iowa, USA; Technological University of Delft (TUDelft), The Netherlands, and University of Antwerp, (UA), Belgium.

Traffic-associated fatigue damage is one of the major distresses in which flexible pavements fail. This type of distress is the result of many thousands--or even millions of wheel loads passing over a pavement. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's pre-publication draft of NCHRP Research Report 982: Relationships Between the Fatigue Properties of Asphalt Binders and the Fatigue Performance of Asphalt Mixtures details these relationships and makes several conclusions and recommendations.