Nonlinear properties analysis on rutting behaviour of bituminous materials with different air void contents

Abstract Rutting is one of the major distresses of flexible pavement. It is defined as the formation of longitudinal depressions along the wheel paths caused by the progressive movement of materials under traffic loading in the asphalt pavement layers or in the underlying base through consolidation or plastic flow. This structural damage has a negative financial impact to the economy. In this study, the rutting behaviour of bituminous materials with different air void contents was investigated. The dynamic cyclic compression testing was carried out to establish nonlinear material models with multiple regression technique. With the specified material models, finite element analysis was carried out to study the rutting behaviour of the wearing course materials with different air void contents in a flexible pavement structure. The simulation result shows that the rutting depth is small at the air void contents of 4.5–8% for wearing course materials. However, for the air void contents above or below this range, the rutting resistance reduces, and thus the rutting depth increases. To verify this simulation result, wheel tracking tests were performed to obtain laboratory data, and the test data was found to be very close to the simulated one. This proved that the developed nonlinear model is applicable to simulate the rutting performance of bituminous mixture and it is a convenient and economical method to be used for the design of bituminous mixtures for both new and rehabilitated pavements.