Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 1342–1349

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Analysis on fatigue crack growth laws for crumb rubber modified (CRM)
asphalt mixture
Hainian Wang a,⇑, Zhengxia Dang a,1, Lian Li b,2, Zhanping You c,3
a
Key Laboratory for Special Area Highway Engineering of Ministry of Education Chang’an University South Erhuan Middle Section, Xia’n, Shaanxi 710064, China
b
School of Civil Engineering, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, Gansu 730050, China
c
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931-1295, United States

h i g h l i g h t s

 Crumb rubber concentration has significant influence on CRM asphalt mixture’s fatigue property.
 It is beneficial for the CRM mixture’s fatigue property to use smaller size rubber powders.
 The fatigue life becomes longer and crack grows slower with the increasing of loading frequency.
 Gap aggregate gradation behaves better than continuous gradation for CRM mixtures.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In recent years, crumb rubber has been applied widely in asphalt pavement, and many researchers have
Received 9 March 2013 indicated that crumb rubber modified (CRM) asphalt mixture is an environmentally friendly material. In
Received in revised form 2 June 2013 this study, the notched semi-circular bending (SCB) test was employed to study the fatigue cracking
Accepted 4 June 2013
property for CRM asphalt mixture. Then the cracking growth length was obtained by image processing
Available online 13 July 2013
technology, and its correlation with the fatigue number was established and studied in this paper. Con-
currently, the influence of gradation type, asphalt content, test temperature, stress ratio, loading fre-
Keywords:
quency, rubber powder concentration and rubber powder size on CRM asphalt mixtures’ fatigue life
Crumb rubber modified (CRM) asphalt
mixture
and crack growth laws were investigated by this method. The results indicated that the gap-graded
Notched semi-circular bending (SCB) test CRM asphalt mixture had a longer fatigue life and a lower crack growth rate than the continuous graded
Fatigue crack mixtures Moreover, at the optimum asphalt content, the fatigue life was much longer and the crack
growth rate was much lower at smaller loading times with higher loading frequency at the CRM asphalt
mixture concentration of 20% using the smaller 80 mesh fine crumb rubber size.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction crumb rubber into asphalt can improve its performance [3]. Many
studies have proved that CRM asphalt pavement increase pave-
With the rapid development of automobile industry and quick ment life by, resistance to cracking and rutting, decrease traffic
increase of cars annually, over 65 million scrap tires have been pro- noise, and overall reduction of the maintenance costs. In addition,
duced every year in China [1]. And moreover, the number of scrap some researchers have found that the use of crumb rubber into as-
tires has been increasing at a rate of 20% annually in the past dec- phalt binders can enhance the fatigue resistance [4–7].
ade, which gives great pressure to the environment. The question Fatigue cracking of asphalt mixture is one of the main damages
of how to deal with these scrap tires is an important issue all over in asphalt pavements, which influences the pavement performance
the world [2]. In recent years, it is very popular to employ scrap tire significantly. The main influencing factor of fatigue cracking is the
into asphalt pavement. Crumb rubber modified (CRM) asphalt can material property [8,9]. Cao and Bai employed crumb rubber pow-
consume a considerable number of scrap tires, moreover adding ders from different sources and virgin asphalt of 70# (penetration
grade) and 90# to evaluate the performances of asphalt rubber
stress absorbing membrane interlay [10]. The test results indicated
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 29 82334798. that CRM asphalt binder with truck tire crumb rubber has better
E-mail addresses: wanghainian@aliyun.com (H. Wang), zhaofeng performances than that of binders with car tire crumb. CRM as-
wuying@163.com (Z. Dang), cdlilian@126.com (L. Li), zyou@mtu.edu (Z. You).
1
phalt binder using the 70# asphalt has a better high-temperature
Tel.: +86 29 82334824.
2
Tel.: +86 9319 8259502.
performance than using 90# asphalt. However, 70# CRM asphalt
3
Tel.: +1 906 487 1059. binder’s low temperature performance and fatigue resistance were

0950-0618/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2013.06.014
 H. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 1342–1349 1343

not as good as CRM asphalt binder using 90# asphalt. All CRM Table 1
binders in general had good fatigue and shear resistance. Properties of 90# virgin asphalt binder.

Wang et al. employed |G| sin d from the Dynamic Shear Rheom- Test properties Unit Standard Test
eter test to evaluate the intermediate temperature fatigue property requirements results
of CRM binder with a 20 mesh crumb rubber [11]. The concentra- Penetration (15 °C, 100 g, 5 s) 0.1 mm N/A 33.9
tion of crumb rubber were 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% by weight of as- Penetration (25 °C, 100 g, 5 s) 0.1 mm 80–100 94.7
phalt binders, respectively. It was found that the addition of crumb Penetration (35 °C, 100 g, 5 s) 0.1 mm N/A 147.2
Penetration index – 1.5  +1.0 0.45
rubber could improve the intermediate temperature fatigue life of Softening point °C P46 47.5
asphalt binders significantly. Previous studies have paid more Ductility (5 °C, 5 cm/min) cm N/A 11.6
attention on different crumb rubber modifiers and additive agents Kinematic viscosity (135 °C) Pa s 0.632
for rubber asphalt to improve the fatigue resistance property in re- Density g/cm3 N/A 0.979
RTFO aged asphalt residue
cent years [12–14]. However, there is very limited and detailed re-
Mass loss % 0.8  +0.8 0.34
search work done on fatigue cracking for CRM asphalt mixtures. Penetration ratio for asphalt % P61 72.9
Xiao et al. used fatigue beams test to study the long-term per- residue (25 °C)
formance of warm CRM asphalt mixtures with one rubber type Ductility for asphalt residue(5 °C) cm N/A 5.1
(40 mesh ambient crumb rubber), two aggregate sources, two
WMA additives (Asphamin and Sasobit) at 20 °C. It was indicated
that crumb rubber and WMA additives could effectively extend
the long-term performance of asphalt mixtures when compared Table 2
with conventional asphalt mixtures [15]. Mull employed Semi-Cir- Crumb rubber properties.
cular Bending (SCB) test to evaluate fracture resistance of chemi- Index Property Test results (%)
cally modified crumb rubber asphalt (CMCRA) pavement based
Physical indexes Specific gravity 1.15
on the J-integral concept. The CRA pavement was found to have a Moisture content 0.45
slightly higher fracture resistance than that of the control pave- Metal content 0.002
ment [16]. Fiber content 0.51
Recently, SCB test, which is popular in Europe and the USA, has Chemical indexes Ash content 3.6
attracted many researcher’s interests. This test can analyze and Acetone content 11.5
evaluate asphalt mixtures molded by various methods; specifically Carbon black content 28.4
Rubber hydrocarbon content 56.5
it can directly be used to carry out cracking analysis experiments
on pavement cores. Arabani, M. used SCB test to study CRM asphalt
mixtures, and found that the asphalt mixtures produced by the wet
and dry processes showed better fatigue performance, which even- Table 3
tually turned out to be an effective evaluation means for the pave- The properties of CRM asphalt binder.
ment service performance of asphalt rubber mixtures [17,18].
Test properties Unit Test results
There are two reasons to explain why the addition of crumb
rubber can enhance the asphalt mixture’s anti-fatigue property. Penetration (15 °C, 100 g, 5 s) 0.1 mm 29.6
Penetration (25 °C, 100 g, 5 s) 0.1 mm 71.2
One reason is that there is some anti-aging agent element in crumb Penetration (35 °C, 100 g, 5 s) 0.1 mm 114.1
rubber powders such as carbon black, which can increase asphalt Penetration index – 0.19
binders’ or asphalt mixtures’ aging resistance when added into. Softening point °C 55.4
The other reason is that the viscosity and elasticity of asphalt bin- Ductility (5 °C, 5 cm/min) cm 17.6
Equivalent brittle point 20.7
der will increase when crumb rubber powder is added into asphalt
Equivalent softening point 51.9
binder, which will increase the asphalt film thickness on aggre- Viscosity (177 °C) Pa s 2.8
gates surface and then increase the asphalt mixtures’ aging resis- Viscosity (190 °C) Pa s 1.9
tance. There are various methods and criteria to evaluate the Elastic recovery % 68.5
asphalt mixtures’ fatigue property today. This paper employed
the notched SCB test for asphalt mixture fatigue test. The influence
of gradation type, asphalt content, test temperature, stress ratio, rubber, sharply increasing the viscosity of CRM asphalt binders. An ambient crumb
loading frequency, rubber powder concentration and rubber pow- rubber from Beijing, China was used in this study, and the properties of the crumb
der size on CRM asphalt mixtures’ fatigue property was studied to rubber are shown in Table 2.

analyze the fatigue crack growth laws in CRM asphalt mixture.

2.1.3. Crumb rubber modified (CRM) asphalt binder
The wet process was employed to produce CRM asphalt binders in this study.
Moreover, the wet process defines any method that adds CRM to asphalt, which
2. Materials and test program
is then well blended and interacted at high temperature and high mix speed before
incorporating the modified binder into the mixer.
2.1. Materials
In general, the CRM asphalt binders’ production process could be described as
follows in this study: firstly, dry crumb rubber powder was added into the virgin
2.1.1. Asphalt binders
asphalt which was slowly heated to 170 °C, then mixed manually for 10 min in a
A penetration grade 90# virgin asphalt from Karamay in Xinjiang, China was
high speed shear apparatus. Secondly, the mixture was blended by using the high
used in this paper, and Table 1 shows the properties of this asphalt binder.
speed shear apparatus heated at 180 °C at a blending speed of 6500 rpm for
50 min. Table 3 shows the properties of CRM asphalt binder in the laboratory.

2.1.2. Crumb rubber powder

In general, there are many physical indexes such as crumb rubber powder size
or gradation, density, fiber content and metal content that will influence crumb
rubber powders’ pavement performance. However, synthetic rubber, natural rub-
ber, plasticizer, carbon black and ash are included in the chemical composition of
crumb rubber powders, and the natural rubber plays a very important role in the
properties of CRM asphalt binders. It is indicated that the increase of natural rubber
in crumb rubber powders can speed up the reaction between asphalt binders and
2.2. CRM asphalt mixture
A type of diabase stone, whose nominal maximum size of 19 mm, was used for
the mix design in this study with limestone as a mineral filler. In addition, the gap
gradation SMAR-16 from Texas and a continuous gradation AC-16 were used for
CRM asphalt mixtures. The specimens in this study had a diameter of 150 mm
and compacted by the Superpave gyratory compactor (SGC). Furthermore, the Nini,
1344 H. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 1342–1349

SMAR-16
100
AC-16
Passing Percentage (%)

80

60

40

20

0
0.3 0.6 1.18 2.36 4.75 9.5 16 19
Sieve size (mm)

Fig. 1. Gradations of aggregates for SMAR-16 and AC-16.

Fig. 2. The notched SCB test process.

Table 4 3. Results and discussions

Volumetric properties of SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt
mixture.
3.1. Analysis on crack growth at different crumb rubber concentration
Volumetric property SMAR- AC- Standard
16 16 requirements
It was indicated that the crumb rubber concentration played an
Air void 4% 4% 4.0% important role in properties of CRM asphalt mixtures. Therefore,
Voids in mineral aggregates 16.1% 13.9% >13.5%
(VMA)
five concentrations of 15%, 18%, 20%, 22%, and 25% by weight of
Voids filled with asphalt (VFA) 75% 71.1% 65–75% the asphalt binders, were employed to study the influence of
Filler-asphalt ratio 1.05 1.15 0.6–1.2 crumb rubber concentration on the fatigue property of CRM as-
phalt mixtures. In this part, SCB test was operated with a sine load,
the frequency of which was 10 Hz and the stress ratio was 0.5 at
15 °C using thev40 mesh rubber powders chosen in this study. Ta-
Ndes, and Nmax values were 8, 100, and 160, respectively. Gradation results are ble 5 show the fatigue lives (load repetition times) for different
shown in Fig. 1. Optimum asphalt content (OAC) was defined as the amount to CRM asphalt mixtures with different crumb rubber concentration
achieve 4% air voids according to the Superpave mix design method. It was indi- under different loadings. However, the N-a curves for different
cated that the OAC for SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt mix-
CRM binders with different rubber contents are indicated in Fig. 3.
ture were 5.7% and 4.7%, respectively. Ultimately, the volumetric properties of the
two CRM asphalt mixtures are indicated in Table 4. In general, it can be seen from Table 5 that both for SMAR-16
CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture, the maxi-
mum load and fatigue lives increase with increasing amounts of
2.3. Test method crumb rubber concentration. And the maximum load and fatigue
lives achieved the largest values when the crumb rubber concen-
The fatigue tests on CRM mixtures were conducted on MTS-810 testing facility. trations were 20% for the two CRM asphalt mixtures, respectively.
There are two control modes in fatigue tests of asphalt mixture. One is strain con-
trol, and the loading strain of mixture specimen is fixed in the fatigue test. In this
However, the maximum load and fatigue lives decreased with
case, with the increasing of testing temperature, the maximum loading time will in- crumb rubber concentration increase when the concentration
crease due to the decreasing of mixture modulus. Another is stress control, and the was larger than 20% for both SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and
stress ratio (loading amplitude vs. maximum loading) in the mixture is fixed in the AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture. Moreover, Table 5 also indicates that
fatigue loading. By this method, the fatigue life of mixture will decrease with the
when the crumb rubber concentrations were the same, the CRM
increasing of testing temperature. In this paper, the stress mode was applied in
the fatigue test and the stress ratio was set as 0.5. asphalt mixture SMAR-16 had a larger maximum load and fatigue
Notched semi-circular bending (SCB) test was employed in this paper to study life than that of AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture. For example, when
the fatigue properties of CRM asphalt mixtures. The specimen at the middle of the crumb rubber concentration was 20%, the maximum load of
which there was a 15 mm long notch, was semicircular with a diameter of SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture was 1.21 times as lager as that of
150 mm and a thickness of 50 mm, and the notch was cut by a 0.36 mm thick dia-
mond cutting slice. Sine loading was used in the SCB test, and the loading and dis-
placement values were obtained at every 0.01 s by the material testing system
(MTS). Pictures were taken continuously as the loading was applied to measure Table 5
the clack length by a camera with 18 million pixels. The SCB sample needed to be Loading times for different CRM asphalt mixtures at all kinds of crumb rubber
stored at the test temperature for more than 3 h before starting the notched SCB concentrations.
test. The notched SCB test was operated similar to the bending fracture test with CRM asphalt Crumb rubber Maximum Loading
three testing repetitions for each type of mixture. However, in order to enhance mixture concentration (%) loading (kN) times
the accuracy of the captured cracking length, gridlines were always added on the
pictures to obtain accurate crack lengths for SCB specimens, and the notched SCB Gap gradation 15 4.870 3324
test process is shown in Fig. 2. SMAR-16 18 5.262 4056
There were two cylinders as two fulcrums under the semi-circular specimen 20 5.628 4682
and one fulcrum on the semi-circular specimen. One advantage of the SCB test is 22 4.852 4389
that the distance between two fulcrums can be changed to meet test requirements. 25 3.620 3895
Moreover, the testing device is very simple, and the asphalt mixture specimen could Continuous 15 3.234 2563
be prepared easily. The fulcrums could reduce the friction between the mixture gradation AC-16 18 3.883 3125
specimen and fulcrum to make it easy to analyze the specimen under test loading. 20 4.639 3587
Another advantage of the SCB test is that the test is suitable for all kinds of speci- 22 4.195 3235
mens, such as Marshall-mixture specimen, SGC mixture specimen and the core ta- 25 3.745 2986
ken from serving field pavement.
 H. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 1342–1349 1345

35 35

Crack Growth Length (mm)

SMAR-16
Crack Growth Length (mm)

AC-16
30 30

25
25

15% 20
20 18%
20%
22% 15
15 25%
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
0 600 1200 1800 2400 3000 3600 4200 4800 5400 Fatigue Life (loading circles)
Loading Circles
(a) Fig. 4. Crack length for SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt
mixture with 20% rubber content.

35
Crack Growth Length (mm)

Table 6
ANOVA results of crumb rubber concentration on crack length growth.
30
Source SS df MS F P-value Fcrit
SMAR-16 171.052 4 42.763 29.5597 0.000 2.5252
25
AC-16 291.749 4 72.937 35.1649 0.000 2.5837
15%
18% Note: SS: sum of squares; df: degree of freedom; MS: mean squares; F: the F value;
20 Fcrit, the F critical value; The significance level is 0.05.
20%
22%
15 25%

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 Table 7

Loading Circles ANOVA results of the difference between SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16
CRM asphalt mixture at different crumb rubber concentrations on crack length
(b) growth.

Source (%) SS df MS F P-value Fcrit

Fig. 3. N-a curves for different CRM binders with different rubber contents, (a)
SMAR-16 and (b) AC-16. 15 102.093 1 102.094 29.7482 0.0002 4.8443
18 110.976 1 110.976 25.3790 0.0002 4.6001
20 35.824 1 35.824 6.1605 0.02454 4.4940
22 148.350 1 148.350 25.0691 0.0001 4.5431
AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture, and fatigue life of SMAR-16 CRM as- 25 112.801 1 112.801 26.3230 0.0002 4.6672

phalt mixture is 1.31 times that of AC-16.
However, from Fig. 3 it can also be seen that, both for SMAR-16
CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture, the crack
length grows faster with the increase of fatigue life. When the load
repetition times were the same for SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixtures
at different crumb rubber concentrations, the mixture with 20%
rubber content had the smallest crack length. Further findings for
SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture were consistent with AC-16 CRM
asphalt mixture. Therefore, it could be learnt that 20% could be
an optimum crumb rubber concentration when referring to anti-
fatigue property for CRM asphalt mixtures, as the crack grows
much slower and fatigue life is longer at that concentration than
that of CRM asphalt mixtures with other crumb rubber contents.
Also, the crack length of SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture grows
much slower than that of AR-16 CRM asphalt mixture. Take the
CRM asphalt mixtures with 20% for example, as it is indicated in
Fig. 4, when the load repetition time was lower than 2200, crack
lengths grows similarly. However, the crack length grows much
slower in the SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture than that of the AR-
16 CRM asphalt mixture. Therefore, SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture
has a much better anti-fatigue property than AC-16 asphalt
mixture.
Furthermore, the statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA) tech-
nique was applied to quantify the effects of aggregate gradation
and crumb rubber concentrations on the CRM asphalt mixtures’
crack length growth, and the analysis results are shown in Tables
6 and 7. In this study ANOVA was conducted by using the Excel
Note: SS: sum of squares; df: degree of freedom; MS: mean squares; F: the F value;
Fcrit, the F critical value; The significance level is 0.05.
program, of which the accuracy of the various models was evalu-
ated at a significance level of 0.05 (a = 0.05). It could be learnt that
crumb rubber concentration had a significant effect on crack
growth length in notched SCB test for both SMAR-16 CRM asphalt
mixture and AR-16 CRM asphalt mixture as Fcrit value was bigger
than F value or P-value was smaller than 0.05. Also, as it is indi-
cated in Table 7 the differences between the crack length of
SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture
are significant at different crumb rubber concentrations. Therefore,
both crumb rubber content and gradation are very important in
CRM asphalt mixture’s fatigue property.
3.2. Analysis of crumb rubber powder size on crack growth
Since it was indicated that 20% crumb rubber concentration
could be an optimum content in evaluating the fatigue property
of CRM asphalt mixture, this paper also employed three sizes of
crumb rubber powders (20 mesh, 40 mesh, 80 mesh) by 20%
weight of asphalt to investigate the fatigue property of CRM as-
phalt mixture by notched SCB test. Also the effect of crumb rubber
powder size on fatigue property in different gradations of CRM as-
phalt mixture was studied. SCB test was operated with a sine load-
ing, the frequency of which was 10 Hz and the stress ratio was 0.5
1346 H. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 1342–1349

6 SMAR-16 20#
35

Crack Growth Length (mm)

AC-16 40#
5 80#
Maximum Loading (KN)

30
4
25
3

20
2

1 15

0 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

20# 40# 80#
Fatigue Life(loading circle)
Crumb Rubber Powder Size
(a) (a)

SMAR-16 35 20#

Crack growth Length (mm)

5000 40#
AC-16
80#
30
4000
Loading Cycles

25
3000

20
2000

15
1000
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500
0 Fatigue Life (loading circles)
20# 40# 80#
Crumb Rubber Powder Size (b)
(b) Fig. 6. N-a curves for SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt
mixture under different crumb rubber sizes, (a) SMAR-16 and (b) AC-16.
Fig. 5. Maximum loading and fatigue life for SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and
AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture with different rubber powder size, (a) maximum
loading and (b) fatigue life.
Table 8
ANOVA of rubber powder size on crack lengths in notched SCB test.

at 15 °C. The maximum loading and fatigue life of SMAR-16 CRM Source SMAR-16 AR-16
asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture with different 20 mesh 40 mesh 80 mesh 20 mesh 40 mesh 80 mesh
crumb rubber powders sizes at 20% rubber concentration are
40 mesh – S – S
shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen that both maximum loading and fa- 80 mesh – –
tigue life increase as the crumb rubber powder size decreases in
Note: N: non-significant; S: significant. The significance level is 0.05.
both SMAR-16 and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixtures. For example,
the maximum loadings for 40 mesh and 80 mesh SMAR-16 CRM
asphalt mixture were 114.14% and 124.38% of that for 20 mesh
mixture when the crumb rubber content was 20%, respectively. length growth in notched SCB test in both SMAR-16 and AC-16
While, for fatigue life the values were 123.86% and 141.85%, CRM asphalt mixtures. As indicated in Fig. 6 and Table 8, mixtures
respectively. It was shown that for the two gradation mixtures with smaller crumb rubber powder size would have better ant-fa-
with the same crumb rubber size and content, SMAR-16 CRM as- tigue property.
phalt mixture had a lager maximum loading and a longer fatigue
life than AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture.
The N-a curves which describe the relationships between load- 3.3. Analysis of test temperature on crack length growth
ing repetition times and crack growth lengths for both SMAR-16
and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixtures with different crumb rubber sizes As it is known that an asphalt mixture is a viscoelastic material,
are indicated in Fig. 6. It could be seen that when the fatigue life and its mechanical properties are influenced significantly by tem-
was the same, both SMAR-16 and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixtures peratures, therefore, in order to study the effect of temperature on
with smaller size rubber powders had a smaller crack growth the fatigue property of CRM asphalt mixture, three temperatures:
length. Therefore, the crack grew the most slowest in CRM asphalt 5 °C, 15 °C and 25 °C were chosen in notched SCB tests. The loading
mixture with 80 mesh rubber powders than that with the other was a sine loading with a frequency of 10 Hz, and the stress ratio
two sizes of rubber powders. was 0.5. In addition, crumb rubber powder size in this study was
The ANOVA was employed to analyze the significant effects of 40 mesh, and the content was 20% by the weight of virgin asphalt
crumb rubber powder size and gradation on crack growth length, binders. The maximum loadings and loading times of SMAR-16
and the results are shown in Table 8. It was identified and verified CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture at different
that crumb rubber powder sizes had significant effect on crack temperatures are shown in Table 9.
 H. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 1342–1349 1347

Table 9 to 25 °C, respectively. However, when referring to fatigue life in

Maximum loading and loading times of SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 the same test temperature range, the decrease values were
CRM asphalt mixture.
47.67% and 52.05% respectively. Therefore, the anti-fatigue prop-
Gradation Temperature (°C) Maximum loading (kN) Fatigue life erty of CRM asphalt mixture could become weak when the test
SMAR-16 5 10.977 8946 temperature increases.
15 5.628 4682 In addition, N-a curves for AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture and
25 2.342 2245 SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture at different temperatures are
AC-16 5 8.653 6852 shown in Fig. 7. It is indicated that for the same CRM asphalt mix-
15 4.639 3587 ture, the crack length grows much faster in the notched SCB test as
25 2.231 1986
the test temperature rises. As stress mode was applied in the SCB
fatigue test, and the fatigue life of mixture will decrease with the
increasing of testing temperature. Fig. 7 also indicates that temper-
ature has a significant effect on CRM asphalt mixture’s fatigue
35
property, and for either SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture or AC-16
30
CRM asphalt mixture the crack length grows faster at low temper-
ature than at high temperature, therefore, the increase of temper-
Crack Length (mm)

25 ature could weaken fatigue life. It is also indicated that at the same
testing temperature, SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture has a better
ant-fatigue property than that of AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture.
20 o However, the differences between the fatigue properties of the
AC-16 5 C
o
AC-16 15 C two mixtures at different temperatures are different. ANVOA was
o
AC-16 25 C
o
employed to study these differences, and the results were shown
SMAR-16 5 C
15 o in Table 10. It can be seen that the differences between fatigue
SMAR-16 15 C
SMAR-16 25 C
o properties of SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM as-
phalt mixture are significant at different test temperatures. When
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
compared using the P-values, it could be obtained that the differ-
Fatigue Life (loading circles)
ence at 25 °C is the greatest as the P-value is smallest and the dif-
Fig. 7. N-a curves for AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture and SMAR-16 CRM asphalt ference at 15 °C is the smallest. Therefore, this phenomenon might
mixture at different temperatures. require a further investigation.

3.4. Analysis of loading frequency on crack growth

Table 10
ANOVA results of the difference between the fatigue properties of SMAR-16 CRM
asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture at different temperatures. Loading frequency was used to simulate the vehicle speed on
asphalt pavement to some extent. In general, the vehicle with a
Source SS df MS F P-value Fcrit
high speed will have a higher loading frequency on an asphalt
5 °C 16.224 1 16.224 9.9015 0.0034 4.1300 pavement. Three sine loadings with frequencies of 5 Hz, 10 Hz
15 °C 33.834 1 33.834 6.0524 0.0249 4.4513
and 15 Hz were employed in the notched SCB tests for this part.
25 °C 32.5125 1 32.5125 21.5275 0.0012 5.1173
The test temperature was 15 °C, and 40 mesh crumb rubber pow-
Note: SS: sum of squares; df: degree of freedom; MS: mean squares; F: the F value; der’s content was 20% by weight of virgin asphalt binder. Then
Fcrit, the F critical value; The significance level is 0.05. the maximum loadings and fatigue lives for SMAR-16 CRM asphalt
mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture were obtained in the
notched SCB tests, the results are shown in Fig. 8. It was indicated
From Table 9 it can be seen that for both the SMAR-16 and AC- that the maximum loadings for the two mixtures remained the
16 CRM asphalt mixtures, the maximum loading and fatigue life all same when the loading frequency changed stating that in notched
decrease as the test temperature increases. As for SMAR-16 CRM SCB test loading frequency had no influence on the mixture’s max-
asphalt mixture, the maximum loading decreased by 48.73% and imum loadings. However, the longest fatigue life emerged at 15 Hz
58.39% as the test temperature rose from 5 °C to 15 °C and 15 °C both for SMAR-16 and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture. This indicates

5500
7.0 SMAR-16
SMAR-16
5000 AC-16
AC-16
Maximum Loading (KN)

6.5
4500
Fatigue Life

6.0
4000

5.5
3500

5.0 3000

4.5 2500

2000
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Loading Frequency (Hz) Loading Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 8. The maximum loadings and loading times for SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AC-16 CRM asphalt mixture.
1348 H. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 1342–1349
35 5Hz
10Hz
Crack Length (mm) 15Hz
30
25
20
15
0 1000 2000
Fatigue Life
(a)
Fig. 9. N-a curves for SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture and AR-16 CRM asphalt mixture at different loading frequencies.
Table 11
ANOVA of loading frequency on crack lengths in notched SCB test.
Source (Hz) SMAR-16 AR-16
5 Hz 10 Hz 15 Hz 5 Hz
5 – S S – S
10 – S
15 – –
Note: N: non-significant; S: significant. The significance level is 0.05.
that increasing vehicle speed appropriately could extend asphalt
pavement life.
In addition, the N-a curves for SMAR-16 CRM asphalt mixture
and AR-16 CRM asphalt mixture are indicated in Fig. 9. It could
be seen that when the loading frequency was 15 Hz, the crack
length grew the slowest for both the SMAR-16 sand AC-16 CRM as-
phalt mixture after bearing the same loading repetition times. For
example, when the loading repetition time was 2000 for SMAR-16
CRM asphalt mixture, the crack lengths at 10 Hz and 15 Hz were
66.55% and 62.21% of that at 5 Hz. Loading frequency play a signif-
icant role in CRM asphalt mixture’s fatigue property as indicated in
Table 11. Therefore, the vehicle speed is very important in asphalt
pavement fatigue property.
4. Summary and conclusion
In this paper, in order to study crack growth in CRM asphalt
mixture in notched SCB test, the dynamic expansion length of
cracking was obtained by image processing technology, and its cor-
relation with the fatigue number and crack growth length were
studied. Therefore, the influence of gradation type, asphalt content,
test temperature, stress ratio, loading frequency, rubber powder
concentration and rubber powder size on CRM asphalt mixtures’
fatigue life and crack growth laws were also studied. Therefore,
the following conclusions are drawn from the experimental data
obtained in this study:
1. Five crumb rubber concentrations (15%, 18%, 20%, 22% and 25%
by weight of virgin asphalt binders) were chosen to study the
rubber content’s effect on the fatigue property of CRM asphalt
mixture. The crumb rubber powder size was 40 mesh in
notched SCB test. It was indicated that crumb rubber concentra-
tion plays a significant role in CRM asphalt mixture’s fatigue
property. When the crumb rubber concentration was 20%,
CRM asphalt mixture had the best anti-fatigue property, the
fatigue life was the longest and crack grew the most slowest.
35
5Hz
10Hz
Crack Length (mm)
30 15Hz
25
20
15
3000 4000 5000 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500
Fatigue Life
(b)
2. When studying the crumb rubber powder size effect on CRM
asphalt mixture’s fatigue property, rubber powders of 20 mesh,
40 mesh and 80 mesh were employed in this paper. The test
results show that fatigue lives for both SMAR-16 and AC-16
10 Hz 15 Hz
asphalt mixture would grow longer when the rubber powder
S size decreases as crack grew more slowly in the notched SCB
– S
test.
3. The notched SCB test was conducted at 5 °C, 15 °C and 25 °C to
study the effect of temperature on CRM asphalt mixture’s fati-
gue property. It was learnt that for the same CRM asphalt mix-
ture, crack would grow much faster as temperature rises, and
the fatigue life would decrease. Therefore, temperature had a
significant effect on the CRM asphalt mixture’s fatigue life.
4. Another significant factor to influence CRM asphalt mixture’s
fatigue property was the loading frequency. Three loading fre-
quencies of 5 Hz, 10 Hz and 15 Hz were employed in notched
SCB test. The fatigue life would be longer as crack grew much
slower when the loading frequency was increased..
5. It was also found in this study that the SMAR-16 CRM asphalt
mixture had a better ant-fatigue property than AC-16 CRM
asphalt mixture. This indicated that gap gradation is more suit-
able for CRM asphalt mixture than continuous gradation.
Acknowledgements
The research is supported by the funds of National Natural Sci-
ence Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 51178056), the Shaanxi Pro-
vincial Natural Science Foundation (2011JQ7007) and the Special
Fund for Basic Scientific Research of Central Colleges, Chang’an
University (CHD2012ZD013).
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