Samenvatting
The purpose of this paper is to describe the specification criteria and test methods that have been developed for the new SHRP binder specification. The specification is driven by the critical distress mechanisms as observed by the highway industry in the field. In the paper the distress mechanisms addressed are presented; they are as follows: 1) rutting, 2) thermal shrinkage cracking, 3) fatigue cracking, 4) ageing. The specification is based upon both rheological and failure properties of the bitumen. The former properties have been used in order to produce a unique linear viscoelastic characterization (LVE) for bitumen.