Fatigue performance of asphalt pavements with highly polymer-modified asphalt binders

Abstract

The paper briefly discusses traditional asphalt pavements designing methods of designing of asphalt pavements developed in the second half of the 20th century. In comparison, it presents the assumptions and derivations of a modern method based on the simplified viscoelastic continuum damage (S-VECD) model together with its necessary input data. In the second part of the article, structures for two different traffic load categories - heavy traffic and extreme traffic - were analysed. For each traffic load categories two types of constructions were compared - reference construction - made with typical neat asphalt binder in base course and construction with anti-fatigue base layer made with highly polymer modified asphalt binder (HiMA). Fatigue performance of each structure was estimated using two methods - Asphalt Institute method and S-VECD method. Results showed that approach using the Asphalt Institute equations is correct for unmodified asphalt materials, while for the asphalt mixtures with a high elastomer content it generates rather doubtful results. The example presented that it is possible the possibility of to captureing the field performance of HiMA with the S-VECD method.

KEYWORDS:

• S-VECD
• asphalt institute
• HiMA
• fatigue performance

Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank Prof. Richard Kim and his students from the North Carolina State University, USA for their valuable help in conducting this research and allowing to use LVECD software (Layered ViscoElastic Continuum Damage). Further, Authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to Prof. Eshan Dave and Dr Rasool Nemati from the University of New Hempshire, USA for providing constructive feedback on the S-VECD approach. All observations and opinions expressed in this paper are solely Authors’ and should not be linked to Authors’ previous or current employers. The laboratory experiments and calculations were part of the research project titled ‘Application of HiMA binders in road pavement structures’ funded by Orlen Asfalt, Poland.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Standard axle load – 100 kN single axle with single wheels.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Orlen Asfalt, Poland: [grant number Application of HiMA binders in road pavement struc].