| Summary: | This paper presents the effects of different amounts of steel fibre on the volumetric properties of stone mastic asphalt (SMA) mixtures. Central composite design (CCD) method was used to design the experiments based on the response surface method (RSM) using Design Expert Software. Steel fibre (SF) content (0.3, 0.5 and 0.7%), degree of compaction (%) and stiffness (kg/mm) were selected as inde-pendent variables, while bulk specific gravity, Marshall stability, flow and air void of asphalt mixtures were chosen as dependent variables. In this research study, volu-metric properties of SMA mixtures were measured by using Marshall Mix Design. The RSM analyses showed that all independent variables were significant factors for influencing the volumetric properties of the mixtures. In addition, analysis of the test results showed that the mixtures containing 0.3% steel fibre are the most optimum value to be used as a modifier in the SMA mixture. Furthermore, the developed models between the independent and dependent variables demonstrated acceptable levels of correlation. It was concluded that optimization using RSM is an effective approach for providing an appropriate empirical model for relating parameters and predicting the optimum performance of an asphaltic mixture. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.
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