Experimental characterization of the fatigue damage of asphalt concrete reinforced with geogrids

Abstract

The objective of the presented study is to characteriseexperimentally the fatigue behaviour of an asphalt concretereinforced with coated glass fibre grids or geogrids. This study isbased on an experimental campaign made of 38 four pointbending (4PB) fatigue tests, performed with fully reverseloading, at 10°C with a frequency of 25Hz, according to theEuropean standard EN 12697-24, 2012. The 38 fatigue testscontain 18 tests performed on asphalt concrete specimens and 20tests performed on geogrid reinforced asphalt concretespecimens. Both non-reinforced and reinforced asphaltspecimens are tri-layered beams. This study permitted to showthat the presence of geogrids retards fatigue crack propagationand increases the conventional fatigue life of the asphaltconcrete.