Monetary evaluation of the reduced service life of asphalt pavements caused by the interlayer bond

Abstract

The sustainability of asphalt pavements is highly depending on the quality of the interlayer bond (IB) between the different asphalt layers. In this project a complicated apparatus for cycling testing of the interlayer bond has been developed in order to determine the shear stiffness at the interface between asphalt layers taking into account the combined effect of varying and repeated traffic loading, acceleration and braking processes and temperature. A universal master function for analytical assessment of the IB shear stiffness has been established for any IB condition using the experimental results. Another function for completely fatigued IB has been developed as well. Both functions have been implemented into a finite element program to estimate the fatigue status of asphalt pavements for different bond qualities over a service life of 30 years using the German method for computational design according to RDO Asphalt 09. It has been succeeded to make a monetary evaluation of the reduced service life of asphalt pavements caused by interlayer bonds of different quality and to assess the construction cost penalty.