Behavior of an asphalt mixture MDC-19 under the cycles of ambient temperature in the city of Tunja, Colombia

The weather factor plays an important role in the behavior and performance of asphalt mixtures as a surface layer in a flexible pavement structure, not just from the moisture, but also from the environmental temperature. Asphalt layers of the flexible pavements in Tunja city exposes daily to environmental temperature variations, which usually occur when the highest temperatures are reached during the daytime, and the lowest temperatures appear at night and early morning time. Firstly, this research is based , on the definition of the environmental temperature cycles that occur daily in Tunja City, from the analysis of the temperature series. Subsequently, the analysis was done through laboratory tests on an asphalt mix MDC-19 INVIAS type, made and compacted in the laboratory, to determine the influence of the cycles of environmental temperature on its density, stability and flow properties, during 120 daily and continuous temperature cycles, which consist of 12 hours of maximum temperature and 12 hours of minimum temperature to simulate the environmental conditions. As a result of this investigation, the presentation density is presented, presenting a tendency to increase the measurement that increases the temperature cycles and then a decrease in the briquettes of the mixture that have sometimes been until the last cycles. Variations in the resistance to deformation of the analysis mixture were obtained as the ambient temperature cycles were sometimes made, which concludes that the ambient temperature cycles have an influence on the behavior of the asphalt mixture