ABSTRACT
The simplified viscoelastic continuum damage (S-VECD) theory to has gained wide-spread attention as a tool to characterize the fatigue behavior of asphalt concrete. One major challenge in using the S-VECD approach is determination of the crack localization point to compare mixtures’ fatigue performance. In addition, the currently available index parameters from this approach are not highly correlated to the field performance as standalone parameters and they need to be paired with mechanistic pavement modeling to discriminate between performance of different asphalt mixtures. In this study, the three main components of the S-VECD approach: number of cycles to failure (N f ), accumulated decrease in pseudo stiffness ( ∫ 0 N f ( 1 − c ) d N https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781003027362/6aa7412f-8b72-468d-8f65-f251e01b3a69/content/inline-math71_001.tif"/> ), and damage parameter (S) were used to develop a new damage growth rate-based fatigue criterion. An index parameter based on this approach was found to be highly correlated to the field fatigue performance for six mixtures.
