Abstract
This study examines the effects of freeze-thaw actions and the concurrent seasonal fluctuations in water content, named as climate effect in this study, on the resilient modulus of subgrade materials to evaluate their mechanical behavior in cold regions. A series of suction-controlled resilient modulus tests on subgrade materials with variant freeze-thaw, wheel loads, and water contents conditions were conducted using a newly developed test apparatus. Test results were used to construct a simple model to estimate the climate effect on the resilient modulus by considering the synergistic effects between water content and freeze-thaw. Besides, this study calculated the fatigue life of eight local flexible pavement projects with variant subgrade layer moduli considering climate effect by combining the newly proposed model and long-term in-situ measured data. Results proved that climate-related degradation of the subgrade materials decreases the fatigue life of asphalt pavements in cold regions.
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