Characterization and modelling of self healing of bituminous materials towards durable asphalt pavement

Abstract

The traffic volume and the number of heavy vehicles are growing enormously nowadays. There is a need for designing a durable asphalt pavement with innovative technologies. Pavement structures and materials with self healing and self repairing capability are believed to be very useful in such a system. This paper is aiming to understand the self healing behaviour through mechanical testing and finite element modelling. Instead of a complex and time consuming fatigue involved self healing investigation, a more effective test method was developed for bituminous materials using the Direct Tension Test (DTT) with a monotonic loading-healing-reloading procedure. The results indicate that the self healing behaviour is a viscosity driven process and it is dependent on time, temperature and crack sizes. A visco-elastic coupled damage-healing (VEDH) model was developed using a smeared crack approach under finite element code FEMMASSE. By defining both visco-elastic and local damage-healing properties, the damage and healing behaviour of bituminous mastics can be simulated successfully. Based on the research findings, recommendations are also given for durable asphalt pavement with self healing technologies.