Abstract
Premature rutting due to high temperatures and heavy loads has been a major distress on flexible pavements in Pakistan. One of the main causes of this early rutting is the available asphalt binders, which are still graded by using penetration grading system. The penetration grading system is based on empirical tests and does not link with performance. To improve the quality of the flexible pavement and to avoid the premature rutting the performance based testings were conducting in laboratory. This study evaluated performance graded (PG) binders for use in pavement construction in the country. Five different penetration graded asphalt binder, typically available in the country were graded according to PG system. The performance grades (PG) for all binders were determined based on DSR and BBR results. The two same penetration grades ARL60/70 and NRL 60/70 have different PG grades. The two different penetration grades ARL60/70 and NRL 80/100 have same PG grade. The results show that the local binders are very soft due to which they performed poorly at high temperatures and prone to severe rutting.