A study on fatigue damage of asphalt mixture under different compaction using 3D-microstructural characteristics

The aim of this paper is investigating the microstructural characteristics of asphalt mixture under different compaction powers. In order to achieve this aim, a test track was built to provide asphalt mixture specimens and X-ray computed tomography (XCT) device was used to scan the internal structure. The aggregate particles and air-voids were extracted using Digital Image Processing (DIP), so the relationship between compaction and air-voids was determined at first, and then, the effect of aggregate particles on the morphology of air-voids can be evaluated, finally, fatigue properties of asphalt mixture with different air-void ratio were measured by indirect tensile fatigue test as well. The research results release the distribution of microstructures in asphalt pavement. 3D fractal dimension is an effective indicator to quantize the complexity of aggregate particles and air-voids; suffering the same compaction power, aggregates cause different constitutions of air-voids in asphalt mixture; investigation in this paper can present the essential relationship between microstructures and fatigue properties.