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Abstract
This study evaluates the effect of glass fibre grids, used to reinforce asphalt structures, on the bonding strength between a wearing and a binder layer. For this purpose, a test surface consisting of a 6-cm thick binder (0/16 mm) and a 6-cm thick wearing layer (0/11 mm) was built. Four different grids coated with various quantities of bitumen emulsions C60B4-S and C40B5-S were used. Comparison sections were made without grid but also coated with different quantities of emulsions. Extracted cores with 150 mm diameter were tested at ambient laboratory temperature with a monotonic shear test (Leutner). Displacement, shear force and shear stress were measured. The influence of grid characteristics, the existence of a non-woven and the size of the strands as well as the effect of different emulsions on the shear bonding strength were observed, and a numerical model based on DEM simulations was developed. Also, the effect of temperatures on the shear strength with different reinforced and unreinforced specimens was studied. The numerical samples were created with the particles size distribution of the material, where a spherical shape was analysed. A viscoelastic model was implemented for the contact law. We show that the numerical model is able to reproduce the mechanical behaviour of asphalt mixture and reinforced asphalt mixture under the shear loading test. We find that the tests without a reinforcement grid reach more important values of stress at failure and that the decrease in shear stress levels at failure is more important for larger sections of the strands of the grid.