Illinois Highway Materials Sustainability Efforts of 2013

Abstract

This report presents the sustainability efforts of the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) in recycling and reclaiming materials for use in highway construction. This report meets the requirements of Illinois Public Act 097-0314 by documenting IDOT’s efforts to reduce the carbon footprint and achieve cost savings through the use of recycled materials in asphalt paving projects. This report also covers the development, construction, and initial performance after one winter of demonstration projects that used total recycle asphalt (TRA). TRA may consist of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), recycled concrete material (RCM), steel slag, reclaimed asphalt shingles (RAS), and less than 3% new soft liquid asphalt. No newly mined aggregate is used in the mix. The results of Hamburg wheel tracking and Semi-circular bending (SCB) for fracture energy are presented for durability aspects of both rutting and pavement cracking on three demonstration projects that used TRA mix. Crack surveys were performed to establish early performance history of the TRA mixes. Included in this report is an environmental evaluation of 16 mixes including the TRA mixes used on the three demonstration projects.