Study of the Fatigue Damage Characteristics of Emulsified Asphalt Mastics

Abstract

The fatigue performance of emulsified asphalt mastics directly affects the long-term service performance of emulsified asphalt cold recycled pavement. Fatigue properties of 24 different mastics before and after short-term aging composed by the combination of 3 different fillers and 4 filler-binder ratios (F-B) were evaluated based on the viscoelastic continuum damage (VECD) model. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was employed to analyze the surface morphology of the mastics and determine the interaction between filler and asphalt. The results show that increasing the F-B or the aging effect reduce the stress–strain withstand capacity of emulsified asphalt mastic, increase its integrity damage rate, and further reduce the fatigue life. Comparing three mastics, limestone mastic with a low F-B exhibits a better fatigue performance. The limestone mastic is more affected by short-term aging, while cement mastic and coal gangue mastic are significantly affected by F-B. Filler types, F-B and aging can obviously change the surface morphology of mastics. The microscopic morphology change of coal gangue mastic with a low F-B is dominated by the dispersing effect of the filler, whereas the microscopic morphology of mastic with a high F-B is dominated by the adsorption effect.