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HIGHWAY ENGINEERING
LABORATORY
Research and practice over the last couple of decades has shown
that cracking can also initiate from top and propagate towards the
bottom.
From: L. Myers, Explanation of top-down cracking, Presentation for Northeast Asphalt User/Producer Group, 2002 meeting,
FHA, USA (based on L. Mayers Ph.D. thesis 2000, University of California, USA)
From: L. Myers, Explanation of top-down cracking, Presentation for Northeast Asphalt User/Producer Group, 2002 meeting,
FHA, USA (based on L. Mayers Ph.D. thesis 2000, University of California, USA)
• Thermal stresses
• Binder aging
Factors considered:
Load induced horizontal strains
in conjunction with
variability of asphalt stiffness and strength of layers
underneath the asphalt layers.
The determination of the horizontal stains was carried out with the
use of BISAR 3.0 software assuming an elastic multi-layer system.
Four different classes of FSM where used, as adopted by The British Design
methodology (Highways England 2009). The four different classes are:
Foundation class 1, FSM ≥ 50 MPa, for Flexible pavements with selected granular
or stabilized granular material
Foundation class 2, FSM ≥ 100 MPa , for Flexible pavements with unbound
crushed selective granular, or cement bound material with at
least C3/4
Foundation class 3, FSM ≥ 200MPa, for Semi-flexible pavements with cement
bound granular material with at least C8/10
Foundation class 4, FSM ≥ 400 MPa, for Semi-flexible pavements with cement
bound material achieving the required minimum FSM
International Conference on Maintenance and Rehabilitation of
Constructed Infrastructure Facilities, July 2017, Seoul, South Korea 12
Combinations for obtaining horizontal stains at each selected
position per type of loading, Smix and FSM values
For a given asphalt stiffness and FSM value, when the absolute value of
the horizontal strain developed at the surface of the pavement was
greater than the absolute value of the horizontal strain developed at the
bottom of the asphalt layer, and this remained so for any further
increase of asphalt layer thickness, the pavement was assumed to fail
due to top-down fatigue cracking (TDC) rather than due to the bottom-
up fatigue cracking.
The thickness of the asphalt layer at which the above was observed was
taken as the critical thickness above which top-down cracking is the
predominant tensile fatigue failure mechanism.
a=also for thickness ≤ 105 mm initiation of TDC e= Also for thickness ≤ 128 mm initiation of TDC
b= Also for thickness ≤ 110 mm initiation of TDC f= Also for thickness ≤ 106 mm initiation of TDC
c= Also for thickness ≤ 120 mm initiation of TDC g= Also for thickness ≤ 111 mm initiation of TDC
d= Also for thickness ≤ 127 mm initiation of TDC h= Also for thickness ≤ 103 mm initiation of TDC
The application of heavier single axle loads with wider contact surface areas,
regardless of having dual or single tires, also result in higher asphalt layer
thickness above which TDC failure is expected to occur.
However, there are cases where top down cracking is dominant even when the
asphalt layer thickness is 100 mm.
For a semi-flexible type of pavement with FSM ≥ 390 MPa TDC develops when
the thickness of asphalt layer is ≥ 100 mm, in all cases regardless of asphalt layer
stiffness and type of loading.