Abstract
Asphalt pavement is widely used for expressways due to its advantages of flexibility, low cost, and easy maintenance. However, pavement failures, including cracking, raveling, and potholes, will appear after long-term service. This research evaluated the residual fatigue properties of asphalt pavement after long-term field service. Fatigue behavior of specimens with different pavement failure types, traffic load, service time, and layers were collected and characterized. Results indicate that after long-term field service, surface layer has a longer fatigue life under small stress levels, but shorter fatigue life under large stress levels. Longer service time results in greater sensitivity to loading stress, while heavier traffic results in shorter fatigue life. Surface and underneath layers present very close fatigue trend lines in some areas, indicating that the fatigue behavior of asphalt mixture in surface and underneath layers are aged to the same extent after eight to ten years of field service.
Highlights
Most highways in the world are asphalt pavements
Once fatigue fractures propagate through the entire asphalt thickness, water and aggressive agents have a greater opportunity to infiltrate into the unbound layers, which greatly accelerates the deterioration process [7,8,9]
It is clear that indirect tensile strength (ITS) values of surface layer samples are all higher than that of corresponding underneath layer
Summary
Most highways in the world are asphalt pavements. Due to numerous failures of asphalt pavements, which are brought on by heavy vehicles, high volume traffic, and adverse weather, service life of highways is shorter than expected [1,2,3]. Fatigue fracture is one of the most serious failures pavement can undergo. Fatigue fracture occurs in areas subjected to repeated traffic loading (wheel paths), and may consist of a series of interconnected cracks in early stages of development [4]. Fatigue fracture develops into many-sided, sharp-angled pieces, with a characteristic alligator pattern [5,6]. Fatigue fractures decrease the structural capacity of pavements. Once fatigue fractures propagate through the entire asphalt thickness, water and aggressive agents have a greater opportunity to infiltrate into the unbound layers, which greatly accelerates the deterioration process [7,8,9]. Various laboratory methods were used to simulate the actual traffic environment such that fatigue performance of asphalt pavements could be assessed efficiently and professionally
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