ABSTRACT
The dissipated energy concept was used to investigate the permanent deformation behavior of asphalt mixes. It was found that the dissipated energy can be used to identify the stages of asphalt mixture permanent deformation accumulation. In addition, the dissipated energy can provide better information about the degree of internal damage occurring during the secondary stage of permanent deformation accumulation that leads to the tertiary flow. A new proposed method of determining the flow number was developed based on the dissipated energy. One main advantage of proposed dissipated energy method is that it reflects the changes of the strength and the deformational state of the samples with the number of load cycles. The developed method was able to accurately determine the flow number and reduce variability in the obtained flow number values.
