Multiple shear step approach to determine the rotational viscosity of asphalt emulsions and its correlation with water content of original and diluted emulsions

Viscosity determination of thixotropic emulsions with good repeatability has always been a major challenge. Currently, Saybolt Furol viscometer (SFV) is used to determine the viscosity of the emulsion, but the main drawback of the SFV is that it cannot simulate the behaviour of emulsion under different shear rate. Rotational viscometer (RV) can measure viscosity at different shear rates. Due to the thixotropic behaviour of the emulsions, getting repeatable results by following the hot binder specification is a problematic task. In this study, a new multiple shear step approach is used to determine the viscosity of the emulsified asphalt using RV. Three low viscous (SS-1, SS-1H and SS-1L) and two high viscous (CRS-2 and CRS-2P) emulsions were used in this study. Shear stress is gradually stepped up to different levels after certain time interval to determine the viscosity. In this manner, emulsion undergoes a known shear state and each reading is preceded by a certain repeatable shear history. It was observed that with the progression of time and simultaneous increase in shear rate, the viscosity results are much more stable and repeatable with less than 5% coefficient of variance. The final specifications proposed are 220–730 and 5–90 cP at 50 rpm and 30 °C for high and low viscous emulsions, respectively, which are based on 98% probability. Viscosity measured by this approach also showed strong correlation with water content (R² > 0.94). The correlation between viscosity and water content is even stronger after dilution. With different dilution water content, viscosity of CRS-2 and CRS-2P exhibited R² values of 0.97 and 0.98, respectively.