Climate Change and Asphalt Binder Selection: Resilient Roads of the Future

Adapting flexible pavements systems to the impact of climate change is a challenge in Canada. It is well-known that increasing temperatures and more frequent extreme heat events represent risks for the flexible pavements. These vulnerabilities may put additional pressure on Canadian transportation infrastructure and economy, as weather begins to deviate more and more from historic temperatures. Selecting suitable Performance Graded (PG) asphalt binders for pavement construction heavily depends on temperature conditions at the site. Hence, the goal of this research paper is to evaluate the impact of climate change on PG selection for several Canadian cities based on different Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios. In this study, projected temperature from ANUSPLIN datasets were used to obtain the necessary climatic parameters defined in the SUPERPAVE specifications. Projections of future PG changes highlighted the need for climate change adaptation policies and action sets in Canada.