Three-dimensional numerical analysis of asphalt mixtures cracking
Asphalt mixtures, HMA, Cracking, FEM, XFEM
Hot Mix Asphalt Concrete (HMA) is the most commonly used asphalt mixture as the
coating layer for flexible pavements. The composite material is composed of aggregates
(filler, fine and coarse) and asphalt binder, also containing air-filled voids. The mixture
can be divided into two phases in a simplified way, the coarse solid skeleton (CSS) and
the fine aggregate matrix (FAM). Based on the experimental characterization of these
two parts, and on the numerical-computational modeling of their components, it is
possible to simulate the behavior of the material. In general, flexible sidewalks present
two main types of pathological manifestations: rutting and cracking. The present work
aimed at numerically simulating, by using the Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM),
the behavior of HMA when submitted to the semi-circular bending test (SCBT) which
evaluates its resistance to cracking. To this end, granulometric and morphological
characteristics of the coarse aggregates were collected, in addition to the rheological
behavior of the FAM, in order to compose the complete model of the asphalt mixture
using ABAQUS software. Once the model is calibrated and validated from experimental
tests, it can be used to establish parametric studies of the component materials.