Natural Asphalt from Buton Island can be used as a substitute material for petroleum asphalt, which is known as asbuton. Asphalt Buton (Asbuton) is natural asphalt that contained in the rock deposit located in Buton Island and surrounding areas. Natural asphalt at the Buton Island (asbuton) has a huge deposit for a binder in asphalt mixture use. Many attempts have been carried out to improve the utilization of Buton asphalt as a binder in asphalt pavement road. One of them is the technology development of Buton asphalt pre-mix by adding fluxing materials (modifiers) that serves to soften the bitumen asbuton into the appropriate characteristics as a binder in the asphalt mixture. By adding the fluxing materials, asphalt mixture can be durable even spread and compacted at the cold temperature. This mixture is very useful in areas that have limited asphalt mixture production (AMP) such as in the isolated and small islands in Indonesia. In the pre-mixed Buton asphalt, the mixing is produced on the manufacturing asphalt mixing plant (AMP). After mixing, it can be stored or packaged, while rolling and compaction procces in the field can be performed at cold temperature. The test results of cantabro with the same level of 5.5% BGA and 3.5% flux oil showed that the mixture satisfy the requirements of the asphalt porous mixture according to REAM (Road Engineering Association of Malaysia), which is maximum of 20%.
Evaluation of the mechanical properties of natural asphalt-modified hot mixture
