Effects of Crack Damage on Acceleration Response of Asphalt Pavement via Numerical Analysis

Abstract

With the help of ABAQUS, the acceleration responses of asphalt pavement with and without crack damage were simulated, and the change rate of vertical acceleration peak was proposed to characterize the effects caused by crack damage. The simulated results suggest that when there has been crack damage in road structure, the numerical values of the change rates of vertical acceleration peaks are positive at most depths in asphalt pavement, and the maximum change rates tend to appear near the crack tip, which indicates that the acceleration response of the entire road structure is improved due to crack damage and the vertical acceleration near the crack tip has the most growth. The deeper and longer cracks have greater influences on acceleration signals, and the effects of crack length on the acceleration response of asphalt pavement are larger than the effects of the crack position. The crack propagation will produce significant change rates of vertical acceleration peaks, which proves the potential of using acceleration signals to monitor the extension of cracks in asphalt pavement.