Author: Xuan Chen

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

Cracking in asphalt pavements is a challenging problem and has been the subject of numerous research studies for decades. To properly address this problem, suitable tests must be conducted to capture material behavior in cracking, such testing must be accompanied by proper mechanistic and empirical modeling of the material behavior in cracking. For mixture design and material quality control/assurance purposes, there is not a commonly accepted protocol for testing asphalt mixtures for cracking resistance characterization, due to variability of test results, non-uniformity in test specimens, and overall complexities of the tests that prevent them from being adopted for daily uses. On the other hands, for the tests that are popular for research purposes, the validity and sensitivity of such tests have not been fully witnessed and proven, due to lack of data quantity. Addressing these problems will help improve mixture design procedures and advance quality control and quality assurance of asphalt mixes, especially when complicated components, such as recycled materials and performance enhancing additives, are commonly incorporated into asphalt concrete nowadays. The overall goal of this research is to characterize the cracking resistance of various types of asphalt concrete mixes via a suitable candidate test. An additional goal is to provide guidelines for performing balanced mixture design on asphalt concrete with virgin and recycled materials when using such a test. Throughout the research, the selected fracture test, namely the semi-circular bend (SCB) fracture test, was first evaluated by investigating the sensitivity of performance indicators under various test conditions and proposing the most appropriate test conditions using a solid theoretical background. Then, the test was used to study fracture behavior of a wide range of asphalt paving materials including, but not limited to, various virgin asphalt mixes, crumb rubber modified (CRM) asphalt mixes, asphalt mixes with recycled materials such as reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), and recycled asphalt shingles (RAS), together with asphalt mixes with recycling agents. Not only were these mixtures prepared in a single laboratory, specimens received from different laboratories and plants were also included in the test matrix to reduce bias and to investigate the variation of the performance indicators. Additionally, a method to conduct the performance-based balanced-design using only the SCB fracture test was explored. Finally, the effect of long-term aging on fracture behavior of asphalt mixes was investigated, in order to build foundations for performance prediction commonly used in asphalt pavement design procedures. The main contributions of this study are: 1) verification of the sensitivity of the SCB test using asphalt mixtures with controlled variables under the proposed test conditions that are suitable to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 2) investigation of the impacts of material variables and conditioning, namely aging process, on fracture behavior of asphalt concretes, 3) exploration of possibility of performing balanced mixture design on asphalt concrete using the SCB test as a stand-alone test. The SCB fracture test procedure is found to be suitable to qualify asphalt mixes to fulfill different traffic demands and pavement structural conditions. Reliable mix design and quality assurance of asphalt pavements with complicated rehabilitation histories and sophisticated material compositions can be performed with confidence using such a test.