Efficient and practical techniques to simulate aging of asphalt mixtures is a focus area for practitioners around the world. In this study, a laboratory procedure was developed for accelerated aging of loose asphalt specimens using highly oxidative gas consisting of two types of reactive oxygen species (ROS) i.e., ozone (O₃) and nitrogen oxides (NO_x). The procedure involved the aging of loose mixtures in an enclosed ROS rich environment for a period of 1 day at 95 °C. The chemical and rheological properties of the extracted binders from 5 different mixtures aged using this method were then compared to analogous binders aged using a benchmark of loose mixture aging at 95 °C for 5 days in a laboratory oven. Different metrics for oxidation and aging were comprehensively evaluated including extent of oxidative groups by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), high and low temperature rheological properties using dynamic shear rheometer (DSR), and polarity based chemical fractionation into saturates, aromatics, resin and asphaltene (SARA) fractions. Favorable chemo-mechanical correlations were obtained from the results which confirmed that the mixtures aged using the ROS aging method showed similar or higher levels of aging just after 24 hrs when compared to the conventional 5-day aging method. Overall, the procedure developed serves as a proof of concept and provides encouraging results for further work towards the development and standardization of such an approach.

模拟沥青混合料老化的高效实用技术是世界各地从业者关注的领域。在这项研究中，开发了一种实验室程序，用于使用由两种类型的活性氧 (ROS) 组成的高氧化性气体，即臭氧 (O ₃ ) 和氮氧化物 (NO _x）。该过程涉及在封闭的富含 ROS 的环境中将松散混合物在 95°C 下老化 1 天。然后，将使用这种方法老化的 5 种不同混合物中提取的粘合剂的化学和流变特性与使用在实验室烘箱中在 95 °C 下老化 5 天的松散混合物老化基准老化的类似粘合剂进行比较。综合评估了氧化和老化的不同指标，包括通过傅里叶变换红外光谱 (FTIR) 进行的氧化基团程度、使用动态剪切流变仪 (DSR) 的高温和低温流变特性以及基于极性的化学分馏成饱和物、芳烃、树脂和沥青质(SARA) 分数。从结果中获得了有利的化学-机械相关性，证实使用 ROS 老化方法老化的混合物在 24 小时后显示出与传统的 5 天老化方法相似或更高的老化水平。总体而言，所开发的程序可作为概念证明，并为进一步开发和标准化此类方法的工作提供了令人鼓舞的结果。