Pavement Design with Recycled Rubber: A Toolkit

Rubber Modified Asphalt (RMA) Road Owner’s Resource Center

Learn how to introduce Ground Tire Rubber (GTR, or recycled rubber) into pavement design for rubber asphalt roads.

Rubberized asphalt is an innovative form of asphalt concrete. Also known as rubber asphalt or crumb rubber asphalt, it integrates the recycled rubber granules into the asphalt mixture.

These rubber granules are commonly sourced from discarded tires. This offers a sustainable solution to both tire recycling and waste reduction. The process typically involves three main methods: wet process, dry process, and terminal blend process.

"Crumb rubber in asphalt reduces rutting and cracks and extends life, and it lowers noise levels."Zhanping You, Distinguished Professor, Transportation Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Start Your Pavement Design

Road Condition

Select the current PASER rating for your road. PASER which stands for "Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating." It is a technique for assessing the current condition of a road or  pavement surface. The PASER scale is a 1–10 rating system.

Daily Traffic

Estimate the commercial average daily traffic (CADT) on the road. Ranges are identified as 0–500, 501–1000, 1001–3400, > 3400.

Treatment Recommendation

The recommendation provides a maintenance method for RMA treatment. It includes cost and performance estimates.

Note: For educational purposes only. Use at your own discretion.

Select PASER

Select

References

Glossary

Investigators

Zhanping You, PE

  • Distinguished Professor, Transportation Engineering
Dongzhao (Kobe) Jin

Dongzhao (Kobe) Jin

Select Research Publications: Zhanping You on Google Scholar

Nanoclay-modified asphalt materials: Preparation and characterization
Z You, J Mills-Beale, JM Foley, S Roy, GM Odegard… - Construction and building materials, 2011

Laboratory evaluation and field demonstration of cold in-place recycling asphalt mixture in Michigan low-volume road

D Jin, L Yin, L Malburg, Z You
Case Studies in Construction Materials 20, e02923

Sponsors

Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE)
Resource Recycling Systems (RRS), Ann Arbor

MTU engineering Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering

“Right now at current market [price], the rubber materials cost actually less than asphalt costs. Even if your costs are the same, it’s still a really big gain for a rubber asphalt because you gain five years of life.”Zhanping You, Distinguished Professor, Transportation Engineering, Michigan Technological University
“Hundreds of millions of scrap tires are generated in the US every year. Those giant piles of waste tires pose concerns of potential contamination of local groundwater and fire risk.”Zhanping You, Distinguished Professor, Transportation Engineering, Michigan Technological University