Viscoelastic Properties of Field-Aged Cores

Abstract

Nowadays, engineers begin to pay more attention on field-aged asphalt concrete cores because they have more reality than the lab-made cores and the results can tell what happened to the pavement. However, it is not accurate to estimate the full asphalt mixture because as usual the pavement engineers can only extract the binder from it, not the mixture. Now there is a newly developed way to analysis the data more accurately using the Direct Tension Test. Because the field aged asphalt mixtures are not aged uniformly with the pavement depth because of various reasons, there is a modulus gradient going through deeply through the asphalt layer and usually the stiffest layer is the surface because normally the surface is more aged. A method has been developed to analysis this behavior. Tests are both taken on field cores which are Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) and Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA). During the research, the authors found that it is both applicable for all the field cores. More information about this method and tests are detailed in the following paragraphs.