Abstract
For asphalt mixtures, the difference between strong force chains (SCF) can reflect the skeleton performance. In this paper, six kinds of mineral mixture discrete element model were established. And various SCF evaluation indices of different mineral mixtures were calculated. Results indicate that the short length SCF number proportions of dense-skeleton type mineral mixtures are higher than that of dense-suspended type mineral mixtures under the same nominal maximum aggregate size (NMAS). And the NMAS has a great influence on the SCF length cumulative proportions, and different NMAS can significantly change the stress transfer path for dense-suspended type mixture. Nevertheless, the SCF length cumulative proportions have consistency for dense-skeleton type mixtures. The small SCF alignment coefficient proportions of dense-suspended type mixtures are higher than that of dense-skeleton type mixtures. In particular, under larger NMAS, the difference is more obvious. The SCF that is close to straight line is conducive to transfer loading. Therefore, dense-skeleton type mixture has better rutting resistance. The SCF bears the main loading for mixtures. Mixtures stone matrix asphalt (SMA) has a stronger bearing capacity than that of mixtures AC under the same NMAS. These findings provide insight into the mechanics of skeleton structure.
Highlights
Rutting is one of main forms of asphalt pavement diseases, and its cause is that the asphalt mixture produces too much cumulative deformation under the action of high temperature or the loading for a long time [1]
Jiang et al [11, 12] defined the indices from the contact distance, contact length, and contact orientation and analyzed the relation between skeleton microstructure and marcoperformance, especially the antirutting performance. e above research shows that the geometric composition of skeleton structure has been studied deeply
Based on previous studies [24, 25], the coarse aggregates were regarded as pure elastic materials and two micromechanical models including stiffness model and slip model were used during the discrete element method (DEM) simulation. e stiffness model characterizes the relationship between the normal/ shear contact force and the relative normal/shear displacement of the contacted entities. e contact force is determined by
Summary
Rutting is one of main forms of asphalt pavement diseases, and its cause is that the asphalt mixture produces too much cumulative deformation under the action of high temperature or the loading for a long time [1]. E results indicate that the quality evaluation of asphalt mixture skeleton structure depends on the stress magnitude transferred by the skeleton structure and its ability to resist external loading. Zhang et al [17] evaluated the contribution rate of various mineral aggregate to make the skeleton structure stabilization and transfer external loading in asphalt mixture. (1) To analyze the existing force chains identification criteria and develop force chains identification algorithm for differentiating the strong and weak force chains of different mineral mixtures (2) To propose the force chains performance indices for characterizing the properties of skeleton structure force chains and compare the geometrical characteristics and bearing capacity of different skeleton mixture force chains
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