Abstract
In the design of asphalt mixtures for paved roads, the shape of solid elements has a great importance. In asphalt concrete, the shape of aggregate particles influences the resistance, durability, stiffness, fatigue response and the required binder content of the mixture. Fractal geometry is more suitable to describe the irregularity of the shape of aggregate particles. This paper describes the influence of fractal dimension on the proprieties of asphalt concrete. Following an analytical and an experimental study, it was possible to find a correlation between Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) mechanical proprieties and the fractal characteristics of the aggregate mixtures. The proposed approach allows to determine the optimal fractal dimension in order to select an appropriate aggregate gradation for the specific use. This fractal approach could be employed for predicting the characteristics of asphalt concretes, given as input the fractal dimension of the aggregate mixtures of the concrete materials.
Highlights
In recent years, fractal geometry theory has found widespread applications in many disciplines including material science and civil engineering
The purpose of this paper is to find a simple, accurate method to optimize the mixture design demonstrating that an aggregate mixture having a gradation that produces an optimal fractal dimension will have the maximum achievable density and subsequently the lowest voids in an Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA)
The correlation between fractal dimension and Marshall Stability and Marshall Quotient (MQ) of asphalt concrete are presented in Fig. 6a and 6b, respectively
Summary
Fractal geometry theory has found widespread applications in many disciplines including material science and civil engineering. Some studies applied the fractal geometry to characterize the microstructural complexity of different types of aggregates and mixtures. Several authors applied fractal concepts to describe the self-similarity of soils and mineral aggregates (Bartoli et al, 1991) and their size distributions were characterized by fractal dimension. Fractal geometry was used to model hydraulic proprieties of soil and cement by Giménez et al (1997; Atzeni et al, 2010), to study the porosity by Atzeni et al (2008; Huang et al, 1999; Perrier et al, 1996) and to model the surface characteristics of cement pastes and concretes by Kokkalis and Panagouli (1998; Winslow, 1985). Euclidian geometry is not adequate to described the shape irregularity of the aggregates (Arasan et al, 2011). Fractal geometry is more suitable to describe this irregularity of aggregate particles
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