Thermal Cracking of Viscoelastic Asphalt-Concrete Pavement

This paper studies the thermal cracking of asphalt-concrete pavements using a semianalytical model that accounts for the multiscale nature of the thermal cracking phenomenon, the viscoelasticity of asphalt-concrete, and the frictional constraint on the pavement interface. This paper extends previous work to include the effects of asphalt-concrete viscoelasticity and to include a study of the effects of the major parameters. Numerical simulations lead to almost uniformly spaced thermal cracks, similar to field observations of real flexible pavement structures. A parameter study shows that material homogeneity, asphalt-concrete ductility, frictional constraint on the interface, and rate of cooling significantly influence the thermal cracking of asphalt-concrete pavements.