The concept of energy approach in the fatigue life of asphalt concrete mixtures

Prediction of fatigue life is a very important criterion in the design of asphalt concrete pavements. Bending fatigue is a process of cumulative damage. It is also one of the main failure modes in asphalt mixtures and flexible paving structures. This means that good prediction of pavement fatigue life helps to develop and improve pavement design practices. Various methods have been used to describe the fatigue behavior of asphalt, including phenomenological models, fracture mechanics, and scattered energy methods. This paper evaluates fatigue with particular regard to the energy approach criteria developed so far for asphalt materials. Two methods have been selected to measure the energy approach in compression-compression fatigue tests. Fatigue life from two different methods is compared with the traditional Nf۵۰ fatigue failure criterion, identifying their advantages and disadvantages. In the following, we will examine the concept of primary energy approach and the relationship between energy approach and self-healing of asphalt mixture.

Keywords:

Asphalt mixture , Fatigue , energy approach , Primary energy approach , Stability range.