Asphalt Pavement Aging and Temperature Dependent Properties through a Functionally Graded Viscoelastic Model, Part-II: Applications

This is the second article in a series of two papers describing simulation of functionally graded viscoelastic properties in asphalt concrete pavements. The techniques developed are applicable to other viscoelastic material systems with continuous, spatial grading of material properties. A full-depth asphalt concrete pavement has been simulated to demonstrate the applicability and importance of the graded viscoelastic analysis method. Based on the graded finite elements developed by Kim and Paulino[1], Buttlar et al. [2] used graded finite elements to determine typical responses to tire loading for an aged asphalt concrete pavement. In the current study, a similar pavement section is studied using the viscoelastic graded analysis (rather than elastic). Graded, layered and homogeneous material variations were used for a series of simulations, and the results from different approaches were compared.