Evaluation Approach of Fracture Behavior for Asphalt Concrete with Different Aggregate Gradations and Testing Temperatures Using Acoustic Emission Monitoring

Abstract

Different aggregate gradations of asphalt concrete possess dissimilar skeleton structures, leading to diverse macroscopic and mechanical characteristics. Acoustic emission (AE) technology can realize real-time monitoring of the whole damage evolution process of materials. The objective of the present investigation was to demonstrate the fracture characteristics of asphalt concrete with three types of aggregate gradations, including dense-graded asphalt concrete (AC), stone mastic asphalt (SMA), and open-graded friction course (OGFC) under indirect tensile load on account of the acoustic emission (AE) technique. The Marshall compaction method was used to prepare specimens, and the indirect tensile test (IDT) and AE monitoring were conducted simultaneously at different temperatures. The corresponding AE parameters containing energy, cumulative energy, count, and cumulative count were adopted to characterize the fracture process of asphalt concrete with different aggregate gradations. The impact of temperature on the damage characteristics of asphalt concrete was also assessed. Test results indicated that the AE parameters could effectively classify the damage stages of asphalt concrete, and specimens with different aggregate gradations exhibited different AE characteristics during failure processes. The combination of AE parameters and cumulative AE parameters can accurately characterize the damage characteristics of asphalt concrete. SMA specimens possessed the best overall performance among these three types of asphalt concrete in terms of the variations in energy and cumulative energy at different temperatures. The findings obtained in this study can provide a practical AE-based evaluation approach for demonstrating the fracture mechanism of asphalt concrete with different aggregate gradations.