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Development of asphalt mixture viscoelastic and energy based fatigue testing on APA platform

Asphalt Pavement Analyzer (APA) is a multiple testing platform for asphalt paving mixtures. The APA was originally developed from the Georgia Loaded Wheel Tester (GLWT) by Professor James Lai and others. For the last two decade, APA/GLWT has been widely as an asphalt mixture rut tester by many US agencies.

The present study expanded the applications of the APA by adding the continuous deflection measurement at the bottom of the APA beam specimens. With the proposed improved, APA was able to test the viscoelastic and fatigue properties of asphalt mixtures. To validate the findings, a controlled laboratory experiment was carried out in which three four different asphalt mixtures were tested for their viscoelastic and fatigue properties by modified APA, asphalt mixture performance tester (AMPT), and beam fatigue testing. The results showed consistent rankings of mixture dynamic modulus (E*), phase angle, and fatigue life from different types of mixture testing.

Author(s):

Baoshan Huang    
China

Xiang Shu    
University of Tennessee
United States

Hao Wu    
Central South University
China