Mechanistic-Based Model for Predicting Reflective Cracking in Asphalt Concrete–Overlaid Pavements

Abstract

One of the most common types of pavement on the national highway system is composite asphalt concrete (AC) over portland cement concrete (PCC). With a large percentage of PCC pavements either approaching or at the end of their design lives, AC overlay of PCC pavements has become one of the most common methods of rehabilitation. This has resulted in several thousand kilometers of composite AC/PCC pavements. As the level of heavy truck traffic loading continues to increase on a majority of pavements, it is likely that the total length of composite pavements in the nation will continue to increase considerably in the coming years. A common type of distress that occurs on these composite pavements is reflective cracking. This occurs when the joints or cracks in the underlying PCC pavement reflect through the AC overlay. A performance model that can be used to predict accurately the amount of reflective cracks in composite AC/PCC pavements has enormous potential uses. The development of a mechanistic-based performance model for predicting the amount of reflective cracks in composite AC/PCC pavements is described. Data from the Long-Term Pavement Performance database were used to develop the model. Using the principles of fracture mechanics, it is illustrated that a mechanistic-based model can be developed that closely models the real-life behavior of composite pavements and predicts the amount of reflective cracks. Because of the mechanistic nature of the model, it is particularly effective for performance prediction for design checks and pavement management. Also, since the model can take into account the relative damaging effect of the actual axle loads in any traffic distribution, it has great potential for application in cost allocation.

Simulation of Crack Propagation in Asphalt Concrete Using an Intrinsic Cohesive Zone Model

“…Castell et al ͑2000͒ investigated fatigue crack growth in a laboratory beam specimen and layered pavements using the code Franc2D/L. Several other researchers ͑Owusu- Antwi et al 1998;Shen and Kirkner 1999;Sangpetngam et al 2004͒ have applied fracture mechanics principles in the study of cracking in asphalt concrete laboratory specimens and pavements. However, most studies of fracture of asphalt concrete have been limited either to experimental investigation or to the analysis of stationary cracks.…”

Prediction of Reflection Cracking in Hot-Mix Asphalt Overlays

“…The same fracture mechanics concept was also used by Owusu-Antwi et al (32) and Al-Qadi and his associates (33,34). A briefly introduction from these researches would be shown as follows.…”

“…For each axle load level i, the number of applications to failure N i, traffic can also be estimated from Equation 2.6. It should be noted that only mode II shearing loading was considered in the Owusu-Antwi et al model (32). Then, the total damage, DAMTOT, from both temperature and traffic loading was calculated using the Equation (2.9)…”

Effects of loading, geometry and material properties on fracture parameters of a pavement containing top-down and bottom-up cracks

“…Therefore, the fatigue life of the pavement can be predicted as a supplementary work in terms of the characteristics of asphalt layers. The available design models for predicting the service life of cracked overlays [7,[39][40][41], require that the fracture parameters (such as the stress intensity factors) are known. For this aim, extensive fracture parameters (i.e.…”