Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Document Type
Dissertation
Abstract
Asphalt pavements are subjected to premature cracking due to traffic loading and environmental effects. The Semi-Circular Bending (SCB) test has been traditionally conducted in a monotonic, displacement-controlled mode at intermediate temperature to assess the fatigue crack resistance of asphalt mixtures. However, fatigue damage is essentially deterioration in material integrity as a result of repeated loading. This study aims to develop a cyclic SCB test to characterize the fatigue cracking properties of asphalt mixture utilizing Paris’ Law model. A secondary goal is to apply the Paris’ Law coefficients measured from the developed cyclic SCB test in predicting the fatigue life of asphalt pavement and preliminarily develop a prediction model for it. The DIC system configurations were set up for deformation and crack propagation measurements of sample during cyclic SCB testing. Two indicators including the number of cycles to failure and Paris’ Law coefficients based on cyclic SCB test were developed and used in characterizing the fatigue cracking resistance of asphalt mixtures. The testing parameters of cyclic SCB test were optimized by conducting a full factorial design. The optimal testing parameter combination of 25mm notch depth and 10Hz loading frequency was recommended in perspective of test variance and test practicability. A sensitivity analysis is designed and conducted for the developed cyclic SCB test protocol and the results indicated that the Pairs Law parameter n is found to have good agreement with expected rank of fatigue cracking resistance. For addressing the limitations of previous approaches that relying on indirect estimation and manual labeling during the analysis process, an innovative method was developed to directly measure the crack length during the cyclic SCB test. The Paris Law coefficient determined from the innovative approach effectively differentiated mixtures with varying fatigue cracking resistance. Additionally, the results of Paris’ Law coefficients determined from cyclic SCB test were utilized in predicting the fatigue life of asphalt pavement and a modified Pavement ME model is preliminarily developed for it.
Date
7-29-2024
Recommended Citation
Ma, Ye, "Development of Cyclic SCB Test for Evaluating Fatigue Cracking Resistance of Asphalt Mixture at Intermediate Temperature" (2024). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 6540.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/6540
Committee Chair
Mohammad, Louay N
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.6540