95 Vol. 11, No. 2 | July 2020 pISSN: 2093-8829, eISSN: 2234-1765 LHI Journal 2020;11(2):95-104 • http://doi.org/10.5804/LHIJ.2020.11.2.95 Mechanistic Analysis of Pavement Damage and Performance Prediction Based on Finite Element Modeling with Viscoelasticity and Fracture of Mixtures Mohammad Rahmani * ·Yong-Rak Kim ** ·Yong Boo Park *** · Jong Suk Jung **** Abstract This study aims to explore a purely mechanistic pavement analysis approach where viscoelasticity and fracture of asphalt mixtures are considered to accurately predict deformation and damage behavior of flexible pavements. To do so, the viscoelastic and fracture properties of designated pavement materials are obtained through experiments and a fully mechanistic damage analysis is carried out using a finite element method (FEM). While modeling crack development can be done in various ways, this study uses the cohesive zone approach, which is a well-known fracture mechanics approach to efficiently model crack initiation and propagation. Different pavement configurations and traffic loads are considered based on three main functional classes of roads suggested by FHWA i.e., arterial, collector and local. For each road type, three different material combinations for asphalt concrete (AC) and base layers are considered to study damage behavior of pavement. A concept of the approach is presented and a case study where three different material combinations for AC and base layers are considered is exemplified to investigate progressive damage behavior of pavements when mixture properties and layer configurations were altered. Overall, it can be concluded that mechanistic pavement modeling attempted in this study could differentiate the performance of pavement sections due to varying design inputs. The promising results, although limited yet to be considered a fully practical method, infer that a few mixture tests can be integrated with the finite element modeling of the mixture tests and subsequent structural modeling of pavements to better design mixtures and pavements in a purely mechanistic manner. Keywords: Mechanistic Pavement Analysis, Finite Element Modeling, Viscoelasticity, Fracture, Performance Prediction 1. Introduction Several different approaches have been developed for pave- ment structure analysis and design in the past . The mechanistic- empirical pavement design guide (M-E PDG) was developed under the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) 1-37A project (NCHRP, 2004) and adopted by AASHTO to update the AASHTO 1993 guide (AASHTO, 1993). The M-E PDG method is currently known as the Pave- ment ME Design and is implemented using AASHTOWare * Graduate Student, Zachry Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University College Station, TX, USA (Main Author: mrahmani@tamu.edu) ** Professor, Zachry Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University College Station, TX, USA (Corresponding Author: yong-rak.kim@tamu.edu) *** Senior Researcher, Land and Housing Institute, Republic of Korea **** Senior Researcher, Land and Housing Institute, Republic of Korea ( Received: April 17, 2020 / Revised: July 20, 2020 / Accepted: July 23, 2020)
Mechanistic Analysis of Pavement Damage and Performance Prediction Based on Finite Element Modeling with Viscoelasticity and Fracture of Mixtures
May 21, 2023
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