Abstract

The continuous evolution and development of the society caused a significant increase in the number of construction works. Regarding road works, in the recent years, these have escalated as the need for bitumen increased. Given Romania’s conditions, for fulfilling the need of bitumen economy and thus reducing the costs correlated with road pavement, due to the fact that this material is currently brought only from abroad, it is desired to design an asphalt mixture with a smaller quantity of contained bitumen or even replacing it with bituminous sand, a solution which is advantageous in areas where one can find these natural resources. In Romania, bituminous sand or oil sand can be found in two geographic areas, namely: in Bihor County, Derna-Tatarus-Budoi in Prahova County, at Matita, and Pacureti. Further, these bituminous sands have a naturally occurring bitumen percentage of approximately 20% in their composition. In this context, this paper aims to emphasize, through static and dynamic methods, the physical and mechanical characteristics of two bituminous asphalt mixtures containing bituminous sand from Derna – Tatarus – Budoi. Both of asphalt mixtures have been designed based on departmental normative CD 42-85, containing various sorts of crushed gravel, natural sand and bituminous sand and are intended to be used for the base course of the road pavement. Furthermore, one of bituminous mixtures is performed with bituminous sand and hard paving grade bitumen compared with the second one, which only contains bituminous sand, in this case the bituminous binder consisting in the bitumen contained into the oil sand.