ABSTRACT
One of the major distress types examined in flexible asphalt pavements is the fatigue cracks. The load associated fatigue cracks is dependent on the tensile strain developed at the bottom of the asphalt layer. Designing a pavement which exhibits a tensile strain less than the Endurance Limit will avoid fatigue crack for indefinite load cycles. The primary objective of this study is to understand the effect of modified asphalt mixtures on the expected fatigue Endurance Limit (EL) with respect to pavement thickness design and its construction costs. In this study, pavements are designed to handle the maximum estimated loading in a 40-year period (50 million load cycles). For a pavement to handle 50 million load cycles, the required thickness of modified asphalt mixtures was observed to be less than half the required thickness of unmodified conventional mixture. Additionally, the costs for constructing a pavement with these mixtures were compared.
