High Temperature Fatigue and Fatigue Damage Process of Aggregate-Asphalt Mixes

The scope and the objectives of this project were to: Explore the fatigue behavior of asphalt concrete subjected to high temperatures, defined as the range of 30°C to 40°C. Explore the use of the Weibull proportional hazards model to describe the stiffness deterioration process of asphalt concrete subjected to various material and testing variables and to use this model in the Weibull dynamic approach to predict fatigue performance. Determine whether it is possible to predict the fatigue performance, especially the crack initiation, of real pavement in laboratory simple fatigue tests through the introduction of the Weibull dynamic approach and hence to improve and specify the performance-oriented mix design which will ensure longer service life with economy. Provide an affordable and feasible computer program based on the developed Weibull dynamic approach to simulate the fatigue performance with the input of traffic and 7 temperature spectra, laboratory fatigue test results, and pavement structure. In doing so, it might be expected to accelerate the efficiency of pavement design and reduce the extensive amount of computation effort required to an acceptable level. Identify and subdivide the correction factor, conventionally recognized as “shift factor”, into several sub-correction factors which are related to mix properties, traffic wander, temperature, rest periods, crack propagation time, and boundary conditions of pavement structure. In addition, potential correction factors related to traffic composition and vehicle speed are also discussed.