Effect of temperature on the fatigue behavior of asphalt binder

Abstract Asphalt pavement is under different climatic conditions throughout its service life, which means that fatigue cracking does not occur at a specific temperature, but at a temperature range. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the influence of different temperatures in the fatigue life of two asphalt binders: a non-modified binder (penetration grade 30/45) and a highly polymermodified binder (HPMB). The fatigue resistance characterization was performed by means of a linear amplitude sweep (LAS) test at the temperatures of 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30°C using a dynamic shear rheometer (DSR). From the dynamic shear modulus (|G*|) results, adhesion loss was observed between the binder and the rheometer parallel plate at the lower temperature of 10°C,while at higher temperatures (25 and 30°C) plastic flow was observed rather than fatigue damage. Therefore, considering that the actual test procedure does not specify the testing temperature, the evaluation of failure mechanism is essential to validate test results, because the random selection of test temperature might lead to inconsistent data.