Fatigue resistance of asphalt binders: Assessment of the analysis methods in strain-controlled tests

• The DE and SCR variation rate have an excellent relation with Nf,50 results.
• Different C–D curves (VECD–DE method) are obtained for the TST and LAS tests.
• A single C–D curve can be fitted to all TST data of a single binder.
• The variation of DPSE is similar in TST and LAS tests.
• It is recommend further studies of defining test failure at the DPSE peak.

Fatigue testing of binders is an important subject in asphalt research and in recent decades several test procedures and analysis methods have been proposed. This paper discusses the application of several analysis methods to two different strain-controlled tests, implemented with the DSR.The fatigue laws obtained from the time sweep (TST) and the linear amplitude sweep (LAS) tests with the traditional failure limits, based on a fixed stiffness reduction value, are quite different. Using LAS, with maximum shear stress as failure criterion, gives rise to better results that can be further improved when changing the failure criterion to one based on the dissipated pseudo strain energy evolution.