Bitumen has been used for thousands of years and its importance as a valuable engineering material continues to grow. There is great interest in modifying bitumen with polymers, whether virgin, waste or polymer blends. Particularly in the last two decades, the number of academic groups working on polymer-modified bitumen has increased and, accordingly, the amount of peer-reviewed literature in the field has also increased. Originally, studies on polymer-modified bitumen focused more on engineering and empirical measurements, e.g. ageing and softening point. However, in recent years, numerous techniques have been used to investigate the effects of polymer addition on a range of bitumen properties, polymer-bitumen morphology and polymer-bitumen interactions.
