A Study of Porosity and Permeability in Bituminous Mixtures

This report provides an insight into the content of the project and its significance,
namely `A study of porosity and permeability in bituminous mixtures'. The study is
divided into two (2) elements which cover the porosity and permeability of a bituminous
mixture. Both elements focus on different bituminous mixtures by varying the types of
aggregates and gradations. The types of aggregates used are crushed granite and crushed
limestone; and each of them was employed to produce two aggregate gradations, which
are well-graded and gap-graded. There is strong evidence from this investigation that
porosity and permeability plays an important factor in determining the performance of
the bituminous mixture. A number of tests have been conducted to characterize the
material used relating to this study and the results were compared with the specifications
of the Jabatan Kerja Raya (JKR). Parallel to the investigation on the amount of porosity
and permeability characteristics of the mixtures, the study was further continued to
analyze the performance of the bituminous mixtures. Performance tests relating to
deformation (rutting) and fatigue (cracking) were conducted. There is reason to believe
that granite with gap-graded gradation is a better highway building material as it
performed better in terms of rutting and fatigue cracking. All the observations and
results gathered were discussed in this report