Analysis of temperature effect on bituminous mixtures fatigue behaviour using the EBADE test

Abstract

The EBADE test has been developed at the Road Research Laboratory of the UPC-Barcelona Tech to assess the fatigue behavior of the mixtures by applying a cyclic tensile-compression test to a prismatic specimen at different strain levels (strain sweep). The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of the temperature variation on the fatigue behavior of bituminous mixtures by means of this test. It has been studied a dense mixture manufactured with four different bitumens: two modified bitumens, one with polymer and the other with crumb rubber; and the other two with conventional bitumens, with same penetration but different source. The results show the difference of the mixture behavior with the polymer modified bitumen with respect to the rest of bitumens tested at the temperature range considered. Furthermore, it has been analyzed the effect of temperature variation in the mixture on the pavement design and it has been shown a certain contradiction between the results obtained from the analytical calculations and the loss of ductility experienced by the mixtures at low temperatures.