Effect of Water and Emulsifier on the Mechanical Properties of Cement Asphalt Mortar

The long-term operation of high-speed railway leads to remarkable issues in ballast mechanical degradation and track irregularity. Particularly, in mainline of rail structure, the required time for ballast layer maintenance is strictly short. To systematically cope with this problem, a comprehensive study was proposed to develop a new cement asphalt mortar (CAM) stabilized ballast method. This solution is expected to improve the ballast structural durability with fast application time. However, the engineer properties of CAM paste with different level of initial mixing water as well as the influencing mechanisms are not clearly understood. In this work, the effects of initial mixing water and emulsifier on the mechanical performance of CAM are mainly discussed. The characteristics of the mortar were determined by conducting the flowability test, mixing stability test, and unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test. The test results revealed that the initial mixing water plays an important role in both fresh and hardened stage of CAM, especially the demulsification process of asphalt emulsion. Meanwhile, the emulsifier imposed a critical effect on the strength development of CAM mixture