Investigation of Thermal Reflective Cracking in Asphalt Pavement Using XFEM Coupled with DFLUX Subroutine and FILM Subroutine

Abstract

Reflective cracking of asphalt concrete overlays is one of the major distresses in semi-rigid base asphalt pavement, which results in other destroy. Numerous numerical methods are performed to evaluate the fracture mechanism of reflective cracking. However, a very limited amount of the method has been performed to simulate the initiation and propagation of cracking. Extended finite element method (XFEM) is particularly suitable to simulate cracking propagation, which extends arbitrarily. In this paper, the model of semi-rigid base asphalt pavement structure is built and thermal reflective cracking mechanism is studied using XFEM coupled with DFLUX subroutine and FILM subroutine. What’s more, in order to better understand the influences of interface between overlay and upper base on the reflective cracking, cohesive element with different modulus is used to simulate the tack coat. A series of simulations with different initial cracking lengths and interface conditions between overlay and upper base are conducted to work on the reflective cracking mechanism. The results presented in this paper provide a new method to study the propagation of thermal reflective cracking in semi-rigid base asphalt pavement. The temperature field in pavement is easily obtained using DFLUX subroutine and FILM subroutine. What’s more, the conclusion indicates that initial cracking length and interface condition are the critical factors to the initiation and propagation of thermal reflective cracking.