Influence of limestone fillers on combustion characteristics of asphalt mortar for pavements

Asphalt materials will be ignited and release significant toxic fumes within tunnel fires. Thus, combustion characteristics of asphalt materials used in road tunnel should be studied in order to limit such an adverse effect. In the present work we study the influence of limestone fillers on combustion characteristics of asphalt mortar by thermogravimetric and kinetic analysis. It is shown that the combustion of asphalt mortar is not just a linear superposition of asphalt and limestone. The limestone will increase the ignition point and the activation energy of the primary volatile release, and will catalyze the char formation from the primary volatile release. Kinetic analysis shows that the primary volatile release stage of asphalt mortar combustion can be explained by a three-dimensional diffusion model, the secondary volatile release and char combustion stage can be explained by a model under the assumption of random nucleation and nuclei growth, whereas the limestone decomposition stage appears to follow the one-dimensional phase boundary model.