Unified characterizing fatigue performance of rubberized asphalt mixtures subjected to different loading modes

The most common primary damage form of rubber asphalt pavements is fatigue cracking. At present, the indirect tension, direct tension, bending, and unconfined compression tests are the main considered fatigue parameters to design the structure of rubber asphalt pavement. However, the fatigue test results analyzed by various test methods have a quite significant divergence, which represents a lack of accuracy to access the durability of rubber asphalt mixture objectively. Thus, in the structural resistance design of rubber asphalt pavement, there exists a problem of artificial randomness of fatigue parameters. Hence, the primary objective of this study is to improve the procedure for determining the structural resistance of rubber asphalt pavement. To this end, the direct tensile, unconfined compressive, and indirect tensile strength tests of rubber asphalt mixture were performed under various loading rates to reveal the velocity-dependent of the strength of rubber asphalt mixture. The model of direct tensile strength, unconfined compressive strength, and indirect tensile strength increasing with loading rate are SD = 7.772v0.205, SC = 1.748v0.204, and ST = 1.077v0.207, respectively. The stress ratio related to both the traditional S–N fatigue equation and the loading rate was defined as the standard stress ratio and the velocity-dependent stress ratio, respectively. The fatigue test of rubber asphalt mixture was conducted. The results from those experiments were analyzed. A fatigue equation (Nf = tv−5.129 R2 = 0.853) related to the loading rate was established. The results indicated that the viscoelastic characteristics of rubber asphalt mixture are not taken into consideration in the traditional S–N fatigue equation, which contributed to the non-uniqueness and uncertainty of fatigue test results. The viscoelastic characteristics of rubber asphalt mixture are considered by the fatigue equation related to the velocity-dependent stress ratio. Thus, a new method (Kv = Nf0.0958) considering the influence of the loading rate for calculating the strength structure coefficient of the rubber asphalt mixture was proposed. The effectiveness and completeness of the mechanical behavior of pavement structure characterized by material parameters were improved. Thus, the utilization rate of waste rubber for pavement construction can be significantly increased and the life cycle cost of asphalt pavement is reduced.