ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) has been used successfully in asphalt pavements at percentages up to 20 percent. The main problem that prevents transportation agencies from incorporating higher percentages of RAP is that high RAP contents may result in mixtures that are overly stiff and prone to fatigue cracking. In this study, the previously developed fatigue failure criterion for the Viscoelastic Continuum Damage (VECD) model, the GR method, is used to evaluate the effect of incorporating high percentages of RAP on the fatigue cracking behavior of two different sets of plant-produced mixtures, referred to in this study as the VTe and MIT mixes. Incorporating high percentages of RAP into the VTe mixtures did not lead to a significant difference in fatigue resistance, which may suggest that the blending of RAP binder and virgin binder works as well as virgin binder alone. However, for the MIT mixtures, an increase in the percentage of RAP to 50 percent led to a considerable decrease in fatigue resistance, which was mitigated in this case with the use of a softer base binder.
