Responses of Semi-Rigid Base Asphalt Pavement with Interlayer Contact Bonding Model

Abstract

In this paper, an interlayer contact bonding model according to the Coulomb friction model was developed by contact element and target element to accurately simulate the bonding condition between the adjacent layers of semi-rigid base asphalt pavement. The interlayer contact bonding model can be used to not only simulate the partial bond condition between adjacent layers but also imitate the phenomenon of bonding failure between adjacent layers. Semi-rigid base asphalt pavement structure, finite element mesh, material property with temperature, kinds of interlayer bonding failure, and moving load were explained in detail, and the responses of the semi-rigid base asphalt pavement structure were calculated and analyzed by this model at the room temperature and the higher temperature. The results indicated that the disengaging area between the asphalt concrete layer and the base layer can negatively affect the strain responses of asphalt pavement, especially at the higher temperature, and it can also weaken the asphalt pavement performance with the increase of the disengaging area. The deformation of semi-rigid base asphalt pavement is intensified under the action of the high temperature and the overloads, which would be easy to result in potential pavement structural deficiency. At the higher temperature, the adverse effect of moving loads on asphalt pavement is greater than that of roadbed, and the responses of the asphalt pavement decrease with the increase of the vehicle speed.