Micromechanics prediction of effective modulus for asphalt mastic considering inter-particle interaction

• The J–C model is applied to illustrate the reinforcement mechanisms of mastic.
• A simplified parameter ς is proposed to reflect the inter-particle interaction.
• The inter-particle interaction increases with filler concentration and decreases with test frequency.
• New method shows well applicability up to a filler volume fraction of 50%.

This paper presents the development and validation of a new micromechanical model, Ju–Chen (J–C) model, to predict the effective viscoelastic modulus of asphalt mastic by considering the inter-particle interaction. Based on the approximate solutions for two-particle interaction problem, the radial distribution function is integrated into the ensemble-volume averaged eigenstrain tensor so as to consider the inter-particle interaction, and the solution could be extended and simplified to predict the effective complex modulus of asphalt mastic with different filler volume fractions. It is found that the inter-particle interaction increases with the filler volume fraction and decreases with the test frequency, and the predictions agree well with the experiment data at low and moderate filler volume fractions, not exceeding 50%. Compared with two commonly used micromechanical models (M–T model and DSEM model), the J–C model relatively gives the best estimation of the effective modulus of mastics, and the applicability of J–C model could be further improved.