MICROSTRUCTURAL SIMULATION OF ASPHALT MATERIALS: MODELING AND EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION

Abstract eng:
Asphalt is a heterogeneous material composed of aggregates, binder cement and air voids, and may be thought of as a cemented particulate system. The load carrying behaviors are strongly related to the local load transfer between aggregate particles, and this is taken as the microstructural response. Numerical simulation was developed using two different finite element models, which were constructed to simulate the micromechanical response of the aggregate/binder system. The first model incorporated a network of frame elements with a special stiffness matrix developed to predict the load transfer between cemented particles. The second model used the commercial ABAQUS FEA code incorporating special user-defined continuum elements for the binder and rigid elements for the aggregate. Simulations of standard laboratory indirect tension tests have been conducted, and the results have compared favorably with experimental data. Further experimental verification has included tests on specially prepared cemented particulate systems, which have allowed detailed measurement of aggregate displacements and rotations using video imaging and computer analysis. Modeling simulations have been developed for a variety of material microstructures including aggregate gradation and distribution, binder volume and porosity.

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