USE OF PLASTIC WASTE IN FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

Generally, the road network in India and abroad carries both the passenger and freight transport. India has a
road network of over 54, 72, 144 kilo meters and it is the world’s second largest network. Most of the investigations
stated that in India due to the increase of traffic day by day the application of wheel loads on the flexible roads are very
high. So, the stability of flexible pavement is decreasing due to wheel load and deformation of roads is getting increased
day by day. To overcome this problem the properties of the bitumen on the roads should be improved by adding
additives to the bitumen known as bitumen modifiers. In India, the majority of the plastic waste mainly consists of
polyethylene, polypropylene and polyolefins. In this paper, the natural rubber is used as the modifier to convert the
normal bitumen to modified bitumen, because of similar properties to that of plastic waste categorized under polyolefin.
Marshal method of bituminous mix design was carried out for various percentages of natural rubber in bitumen and
various different mix design characteristics has been determined.