Laboratory testing of fatigue crack growth in geosynthetically reinforced large scale asphalt pavement samples

Abstract

While using the geosynthetics for pavement reinforcement the proper role and designed application is often misunderstood by engineers and constructors of such technology in asphalt road structures. The efficiency of reinforcement is erroneously identified with increasing the AC stiffness rather than fatigue life of reinforced pavement system. The original laboratory method is developed here in order to check the influence of selected reinforcing geosynthetic type on a fatigue life of asphalt pavement samples. To simulate real pavement conditions the research laboratory set-up scale was fit to large size samples cut from asphalt pavement layers. Two types of commonly used in Poland geosynthetic materials were tested in order to evaluate the reinforcement efficiency on inhibition of crack propagation. Test results also gave some indications on numerical model simulation parameters.