Prof. Suksun Horpibulsuk

Prof. Suksun Horpibulsuk obtained a B.Eng. (Civil Engineering) with Honors Award from Khon Kaen University, Thailand in 1996. Prof. Suksun was subsequently granted a scholarship by the Royal Thailand Government to pursue a M.Eng. in Soil Engineering at Asian Institute of Technology and duly completed in 1998. He then received a prestigious MONBUSHO scholarship from the Japanese Government to pursue his Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering at Saga University in Japan that he duly completed in 2001.

Prof. Suksun joined Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) as a lecturer in 2002. His outstanding research, teaching and service for the university, community and profession over the years was duly recognized when he was promoted to the level of full professor in 2010. He is an associate fellow of The Royal Society of Thailand, as well as a professor of School of Civil Engineering and a founder director of Center of Excellence in Innovation for Sustainable Infrastructure Development at SUT. He is also an Academic Senate member of SUT and Rajamangala University of Technology Isan. He is presently the president of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) – Thailand Chapter, an adjunct professor at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia and a visiting professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia. He also serves as an editor and reviewer for several prestigious national and international journals.

His most significant contributions have been in the field of ground improvement techniques and pavement engineering, specifically issues associated with compaction, earth reinforcement, chemical stabilization and sustainable rigid and flexural pavements. He has been awarded a large number of competitive research grants. He has published extensively with over 500 technical publications, including over 360 in leading journals. He has a H-index of 65 (Scopus), 12000+ citations and currently averages 1890 (Scopus) citations per annum. He is a senior professional engineer accredited by Council of Engineers, Thailand and science and technology professional in engineering geology accredited by Council of Science and Technology Professionals, Thailand. He has received Telford Premium Prize from Institution of Civil Engineers, London, UK in 2023. Due to his outstanding contributions for the profession and community as well as his national and international recognition, he was nominated as a TRF Senior Scholar in 2013 and 2016 by the Thailand Research Fund. He received an Outstanding National Researcher award in 2019 from National Research Council of Thailand and a Chair Professor award in 2020 from National Science and Technology Development Agency.

MECHANISTIC PERFORMANCE OF BOTTOM ASH MODIFIED POROUS ASPHALT CONCRETES 

Abstract: Porous asphalt concrete (PAC) is an open-graded asphalt concrete with a high air void to function as a permeable pavement with high surface frictional resistance. The PAC typically requires a high amount of coarse aggregate to provide the required porous structure. An expensive high-quality polymer-modified asphalt (PMA) is commonly required to prevent draindown issues and to improve the performance of PAC. Bottom ash (BA), a high porosity by-product from coal-fired power plants, is used as a greener product to improve the quality of traditional asphalt cement penetration grade 60/70 (AC 60/70) for producing low-cost PAC in this research. The effect of BA replacement ratio (0%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25% by total weight of fine aggregate) on the draindown, loss of particle, Marshall properties, indirect tensile strength (ITS), indirect tensile resilient modulus (IT M_r), indirect tensile fatigue life (ITFL), permanent deformation (PD), rut depth, and skid resistance of BA-AC60/70-PAC were measured and compared to PMA-PAC. The BA replacement increased the thickness of asphalt film due to its lipophilic reaction. The higher BA replacement ratio, therefore, results in a reduction in draindown value. BA replacement improved the Marshall properties, strength index, ITS, IT M_r, ITFL, PD, rut depth and skid resistance of PAC up to the highest value at the optimum BA replacement ratio of 20%. The improved ITS is associated to the improved IT M_r in linear relationship for all BA replacement ratios. The change in ITFL was found to be linearly related to IT M_r at a specific stress level. At the same design criteria, the 20% BA replacement ratio yields the reduction of total construction cost of BA-AC60/70-PAC surface course by 33% benchmarked to conventional PMA-PAC surface course.