pavement performance

epoxy asphalt

asphalt mixtures

emulsified asphalt

Construction and Building Materials

Reflective crack of asphalt concrete overlays is one of the major distresses in semi-rigid base asphalt pavement. Multiple researches have been carried out to investigate the fracture mechanism of reflective crack. However, most of the researches have payed close attention to reflective crack caused by temperature load or traffic load, respectively. In this paper, reflective crack mechanisms of asphalt pavement under combined loads of temperature and moving traffic have been described using extended finite element method (XFEM). The integrated climatic model, in which solar radiation, surface heat flux, surface radiation were considered, was employed to prospect pavement temperature gradients. The standard biaxial loads including compressive stress and horizontal shear are considered as the moving traffic loads. A fracture mechanics-based XFEM, solving discontinuous problems, was employed for simulating crack initiation and propagation. The stress distribution, crack initiating temperature, crack opening displacement and crack propagating path are investigated in the asphalt pavement with three different overlay thicknesses. The results provided a new insight into mechanisms underlying the development of reflective crack under combined loads of temperature and moving traffic.

Reflective crack in semi-rigid base asphalt pavement under temperature-traffic coupled dynamics using XFEM