Characterization of Reinforced Asphalt Pavement Cracking Behavior using Flexural Analysis

This paper focuses on performance assessment and size effect evaluation on flexural fracture tests performed on two-layered reinforced asphalt specimens. A steel net and three fiber-glass grids were investigated. Three Point Bending tests were performed on 60 mm tall specimens composed by both leveling (20 mm) and wearing (40 mm) layers. The test was performed on two differently-shaped specimens (400x100 mm beams and a 500x500 mm slabs) on both reinforced and not reinforced samples. Strain localization and damage distribution were investigated using an in-house Digital Image Correlation (DIC) System capable of achieving highly accurate 2D full-field strain maps of the specimens during loading.