Dias, Claudio Renato CastroNunez, Washington PeresFedrigo, WilliamBrito, Lelio Antonio TeixeiraCeratti, Jorge Augusto PereiraVisser, Alex T.2026-02-062026-01Cláudio Renato Castro Dias, Washington Peres Núñez, William Fedrigo, Lélio Antônio Teixeira Brito, Jorge Augusto Pereira Ceratti & Alex T Visser (2026) Mitigating reflective cracking with open-graded bitumen-stabilized pavement overlays: a 5-year field study, International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 27:1, 2619452, DOI: 10.1080/10298436.2026.2619452.1029-8436 (print)1477-268X (online)10.1080/10298436.2026.2619452http://hdl.handle.net/2263/107932The Port of Rio Grande is located in Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost Brazilian state. It is accessed via National Highway BR-392, paved with Portland cement concrete (PCC) in 1975. A few decades later, an asphalt concrete overlay was placed over the cracked concrete pavement. In 2019, a test section was constructed, incorporating an open-graded (permeable) cold bituminous emulsion mix (CBEM) layer over the existing pavement to mitigate reflective cracking. This study aimed to evaluate the behaviour of this bitumen-stabilized material (BSM) layer and its effectiveness in delaying crack reflection. Pavement monitoring was used to track the evolution of stiffness, rutting and cracking over five years. A mechanistic-empirical analysis was performed using the South African model for BSM, and the results were compared with field performance. The BSM layers maintained their structural capacity as an overlay on a PCC pavement, not showing excessive elastic deflection or rutting. The South African model tends to underestimate the lifespan of pavements incorporating open-graded BSM due to challenges in determining their cohesion in laboratory conditions. Surface condition analysis revealed that the asphalt mix placed over the BSM base exhibited only low-level cracking, demonstrating the effectiveness of open-graded BSM layers in mitigating reflective cracking.en© 2026 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an electronic version of an article published in International Journal of Pavement Engineering, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. , 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2026.2619452. International Journal of Pavement Engineering is available online at : http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gpav20.Bitumen-stabilized material (BSM)Open-graded mixReflective crackingOverlayAsphalt emulsionPortland cement concrete (PCC)Cold bituminous emulsion mix (CBEM)Postprint Article