It is well known that asphalt rheology affects the cracking performance of asphalt binders. For many years researchers have struggled to develop tests that adequately deal with this aspect of pavement performance in a manner that can be incorporated rapidly into a specification. The use of the fatigue parameter developed during the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP), G*sin δ, has been shown to be a poor surrogate for cracking performance. Other tests, such as the direct tension test, used for cold-temperature cracking, also have been implemented poorly into specifications. However, use of the bending beam rheometer as an indicator of cold-temperature cracking has been widely adopted. As a result, a pavement stiffness of 300 MPa has been regarded as a reasonable parameter for cold-temperature cracking performance. The interrelationship between cold-temperature cracking parameters and those selected for fatigue cracking is not well understood. The onset of brittle behavior that occurs around 300 MPa stiffness and the selection of a fatigue parameter G*sin δ at 5 MPa are not wildly divergent in concept. More recently, the Glover–Rowe parameter has been revealed as a good indicator of cracking performance. In this paper we explore those differences that have occurred and make suggestions for the use of alternate parameters to better define the rheology of the binder as it relates to cracking.
Traditionally, various forms of shift factors such as Arrhenius, Williams–Landel–Ferry (WLF), and polynomials have been used with asphalt materials. Shift factors have also been estimated with binder viscosity parameters. Successful extrapolation of viscoelastic functions requires a robust form of shift factor–temperature relationship. This form is important for performing calculations at the extremes of temperature found in practice. A preliminary analysis of complex modulus E* data of mixtures obtained from the Mechanistic–Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) database demonstrated that the Kaelble form of shift factor could describe the functional form of the shift factor more accurately than the Arrhenius, WLF, or polynomial-fitting functions. However, the Kaelble shift function as originally described uses the same temperature as a reference temperature and as an inflection temperature. This factor creates a problem when attempts are made to implement the function in a design method or when materials are compared at a given temperature. Since 2008, additional work has investigated the use of this shift function to describe the properties of asphalt materials, particularly mixes and materials that require a wide range of property description (both above and below the glass transition or some other defining point). A modified form of the Kaelble function has been implemented in analysis software and thus makes multiple calculations more rapid. Additional analysis working with MEPDG E* database materials has shown that shifting works best with the Kaelble modification of the WLF equation. The same method has been applied to other asphalt materials.
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