USE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE TO INVESTIGATE THREE POLYMER MODIFIED ASPHALTS

ABSTRACT

Polymer modified asphalts present an opportunity to enhance the properties of asphalt concrete for road building where conventional asphalts are not appropriate. In this field, researchers have proposed different kinds of chemical and physical techniques to define the properties of these materials. At the same time, microscopic techniques were being developed to visualize the microstructure of the asphalt. In this paper another microscopic technique using Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM) to investigate the morphological structures of neat polymers and commercial polymer modified asphalts is presented. Samples examined present different kinds of morphology easily observable by ESEM. The two commercial polymer modified asphalts show numerous differences, but after heat treatment they lost their macrostructure.