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• Epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) is introduced to prepare ESO modified cold-mixed epoxy asphalt (CEA-ESO) • Increasing ESO content will increase the compatibility of epoxy resin and asphalt. • Increasing ESO content will increase the elongation at break of cured CEA-ESO. Cold-mixed epoxy asphalt (CEA) has been used for paving steel bridges and high-grade roads because of its properties superiority and environmental protection. In order to obtain CEA with excellent performance, it is a significant mean to improve the compatibility between asphalt and epoxy resin (ER) by introducing epoxidized soybean oil (ESO). The viscosity and glass transition temperature (T g) decrease, and the asphalt dispersed more uniformly in the ER with increasing ESO concentration. Based on the dynamic mechanical analysis, the CEA-ESO30 shows only one T g and excellent compatibility between asphalt and ER. The elongation at break and storage modulus of CEA-ESO was higher than CEA, indicating that the flexible ESO molecular chain in the curing networks might improve the stiffness of CEA-ESO. The FTIR spectra exhibited that the ESO reacted with the curing agent to form 3D networks with ER, which may result in good compatibility between asphalt and ER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• ESO made asphalt disperse uniformly and increased elongation at break of the CEA. • ESO did not react chemically with asphalt and epoxy monomer. • ESO changed the cohesion energy densities and solubility parameters. Cold-mixed epoxy asphalt (CEA) has attracted increasing attention as a superior steel bridge pavement material for its convenient construction and low energy consumption. In this paper, the compatibility of CEA was improved with incorporating biobased epoxidized soybean oil (ESO), and the micromorphology, dynamic mechanical properties, and mechanical properties were evaluated. The results showed that ESO made asphalt particles disperse uniformly, and decreased the number of the glass transition temperature of the CEA. ESO also increased elongation at break of the CEA. The compatibility mechanism was analyzed according to Fourier transform infrared spectrum and molecular dynamics simulation. The results showed that ESO did not react chemically with asphalt and epoxy monomer. Due to incorporating ESO into CEA, the difference values of cohesion energy densities and solubility parameters between asphalt and epoxy monomer decreased, while the interaction energy of the whole system strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]