Determination of the fatigue-cracking resistance of asphalt concrete mixtures at low temperatures

This paper describes how to determine the fatigue-cracking resistance of hot-mix asphalt (HMA) mixtures and formulate a viscoelastic continuum damage algorithm based on the comparison between measured and calculated strain vs. stress histories at low temperatures. The fatigue-cracking resistance characteristics evaluated in this study were based on the dynamic modulus test for material stiffness characterization and the constant-crosshead-rate tension test for fatigue-cracking characterization, using dense-graded and lime-modified HMA mixtures. The main contributions of this paper are the methods for determining the optimum asphalt content of the HMA mixtures to improve fatigue-cracking resistance and for evaluating the fatigue-cracking resistance of various HMA mixtures.