Numerical Analysis of the Initiation Cause of the Surface Transverse Cracks in Semirigid Asphalt Pavement

Abstract

An increasing number of field investigations have revealed that the transverse cracks in semirigid asphalt pavement are more likely to initiate in the top of the asphalt layer rather than in the bottom of the asphalt layer, which conflicts with the widely accepted view that bottom-initiated reflective cracking is the dominant distress. To analyze the initiation cause of this kind of surface crack, a numerical simulation model coupled with multiphysics fields was built. It was based on the viscoelastic-plastic damage model, using the finite-element software Abaqus to calculate the damage distribution coupled with the temperature field as well as the loading field. The simulation results show that asphalt layers have two main damage regions in the semirigid base crack section, located in the top asphalt layer and the bottom asphalt layer. The increase of asphalt layer thickness and the decrease of heavy loads are the most possible causes of surface-initiated cracks replacing reflective cracks in semirigid pavements in recent years in China.