ABSTRACT
This paper includes aspects concerning the structural evaluation of heavy-duty asphalt pavements that have been constructed with non-conventional materials. The test pavement included an existing pavement, a cold in-place recycled (CIR) layer and an asphalt concrete (AC) overlay layer, considered in the whole as a non-conventional pavement. Although the use of CIR technology on locally available materials produces a new pavement base with minimized environmental impact, these non-conventional materials, also present great challenges, as far as the in-situ material behavior is concerned, as for example potential reduction of the modulus over time, which affects the bearing capacity of the entire pavement. The research is focusing on the influence of the traffic loading and the environmental impact on the structural condition of the AC layers in terms of the material stiffness, by performing non-destructive tests (NDTs) and related advanced analysis tools (back-analysis). Considering the limitations of the back-analysis procedure, the stiffness of the aged AC material was estimated from laboratory testing. Moreover, by conducting laboratory tests on AC cores at different temperatures, the influence of the temperature on the modulus of the aged AC material and consequently the accuracy of the correction algorithms of the back-analyzed moduli at the reference temperature was evaluated.
