Impact of Surface Temperature on Fatigue Damage in Asphalt Pavement

Abstract

To evaluate the anti-fatigue performance of asphalt pavement affected by temperature and solve the problem of an inaccurate estimation of fatigue damage by adopting a single fixed temperature, the impact of different surface temperatures and their combinations on the fatigue damage to asphalt pavement is analyzed based on Miner law of accumulative fatigue damage, taking the temperature field prediction model for asphalt pavement developed by Dresden University of Technology in Germany for example. According to a considerable amount of measured surface temperature data, different surface temperature combinations and representative values in temperature intervals are determined and the change regularity of fatigue damage in asphalt pavement is studied. The analysis result shows that (1) the fatigue damage estimated by adopting surface temperature combinations is more accurate than that estimated by adopting a single fixed temperature; (2) when the number of temperature intervals forming a temperature combination is considerably large, the estimated fatigue damage in asphalt pavement is more accurate, whereas when the number of temperature intervals is considerably less, the fatigue damage caused by the representative values of the temperature intervals varies; and (3) the fatigue damage caused by a high temperature (or upper limit) for the representative value of the temperature intervals is larger than that caused by a low temperature (lower limit).