Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49

https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-019-1348-7 (0123456789().,-volV)
(0123456789().,-volV)

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Prediction of dynamic modulus of asphalt mixture using

micromechanical method with radial distribution functions
Jiupeng Zhang . Zepeng Fan . Hao Wang . Wei Sun . Jianzhong Pei .
Dawei Wang

Received: 29 September 2018 / Accepted: 29 March 2019 / Published online: 3 April 2019
Ó RILEM 2019

Abstract Inter-particle interaction is one of the inclusion configuration, Mori–Tanaka (M–T) and
major reinforcement mechanisms for aggregates in differential scheme effective medium models. The
asphalt mixture, which is a classic example of high- J-C method assuming P–Y distribution provided better
volume fraction particulate composites. This paper accuracy at the low frequencies; while the J-C method
introduced the modified Ju-Chen (J-C) micromechan- assuming the uniform distribution only had good
ical method based on two types of radial distribution accuracy at the high frequencies. The study findings
assumptions for inclusions in the matrix, namely the indicate that dynamic modulus of asphalt mixture can
uniform distribution and Percus–Yevick (P–Y) distri- be predicted based on laboratory tests conducted at the
bution. A two-step approach was proposed and the fine aggregate mix level and the void ratio and the
elastic–viscoelastic correspondence principle was gradation of coarse aggregate using appropriate
used to predict the effective dynamic modulus of micromechanics methods.
asphalt mixture at different frequencies. The predic-
tion results show that the uniform distribution and P–Y Keywords Asphalt mixture  Micromechanical
distribution based J-C method could generate the method  Two-step approach  Inter-particle effect 
upper and lower bounds of dynamic modulus for Radial distribution function
asphalt mixture, respectively. As compared to the
measured dynamic modulus at different temperatures Mathematical subject classification 74E30
and loading frequencies, the modified J-C method
showed better prediction accuracy as compared to two
traditional micromechanical models based on single
1 Introduction

J. Zhang  Z. Fan  J. Pei Asphalt mixture is a heterogeneous composite that

School of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an, China
consists of asphalt binder, mineral aggregates with
Z. Fan  D. Wang various sizes, asphalt-aggregate interphase, micro-
Institute of Highway Engineering, RWTH Aachen cracks, and air voids. The dynamic modulus of asphalt
University, Aachen, Germany mixture is one of the most important mechanical
H. Wang (&)  W. Sun
parameters for analyzing mechanical responses of
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, asphalt pavement under traffic loading at different
Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, environmental conditions. Traditionally, the existing
USA approaches of analyzing dynamic modulus of asphalt
e-mail: hwang.cee@rutgers.edu
49 Page 2 of 12
mixture can be divided into two categories: laboratory
test methods and empirical models. Although labora-
tory testing provides a direct way to measure dynamic
modulus of asphalt mixtures at different temperatures
and loading frequencies, the preparation and testing of
specimen is time-consuming and labor-intensive [1].
Empirical models are usually regression models
developed based on a large database of experimental
data [2]. While empirical models can be used to
predict dynamic modulus of asphalt mixture based on
material properties of each component, the accuracy
of prediction varies depending on the specific mixture
type since the models neglects the heterogeneous
nature of microstructure.
Numerical simulation methods have been used to
predict dynamic modulus of asphalt mixture, such as
finite element method (FEM) [3–6] and discrete
element method (DEM) [7, 8]. For both methods, it
is firstly needed to generate the microstructure of
asphalt mixture that can be obtained using either
random generation of microstructure with prescribed
aggregate shapes or image processing of X-ray
tomography of physical specimen. Although numer-
ical models can capture microstructure features of
asphalt mixture, the simulation usually takes relatively
longer time and thus it is not efficient to capture the
variation of microstructure for different asphalt mix-
tures, especially for three-dimensional models.
Alternatively, researchers have used micromechan-
ics to develop the quantitative relationship between
macroscopic performance of composite and
microstructure features. Based on the Eshelby’s
inclusion theory [9], micromechanical models have
been successfully developed and applied to predict the
modulus of composite materials [10–16], including
asphalt mastic [13–16] and asphalt mixture [17–23].
The major advantage of micromechanics-based model
is fast computing speed and physics-based principles.
In the micromechanical models, assumptions have to
be made on the morphological properties of aggregate
and the interaction contact between different compo-
nents in asphalt mixture. To achieve accurate predic-
tion, the micromechanics-based model need capture
the complicated microstructure of asphalt mixture,
including the high-volume content of aggregates with
different sizes, the viscoelastic effects of asphalt
binder, and the complicated interface behavior
between asphalt binder and aggregate. Unfortunately,
the existing micromechanics-based models are only
Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49
applicable to limited situations without considering all
these complexities.
Yin et al. [15] predicted the effective complex
modulus of asphalt mastics using the elastic–viscoelastic
correspondence principle and analyzed the prediction
accuracy of four micromechanical models, including the
dilute model, self-consistent model, Mori–Tanaka (M–
T) model, and generalized self-consistent model. The
analysis results suggested that the assumptions in the
conventional micromechanical models were not effec-
tive to capture viscoelastic behavior of asphalt mastics at
low temperatures and high frequencies.
Underwood and Kim [16] applied the dilute model to
predict mechanical properties of asphalt mastic with
different filler fractions at different temperatures and
loading frequencies. They found that none of the existing
models could generate the satisfactory prediction results
if the filler content were up to 60%. They further
proposed a new micromechanical model considering
physic-chemical interaction to improve prediction accu-
racy. The new model was applicable to asphalt mastics
with no more than 40% filler, but had underestimations at
higher concentrations, which was interpreted as the
failure to account for the inter-particle interaction.
Recently, Zhang et al. [21] and Gao et al. [22]
validated the applicability of five micromechanical
models at the scales of asphalt mastic, asphalt mortar
(with fine aggregates), and asphalt mixture. The
authors argued that the high volume fraction of
particle and the great modulus mismatch between
particle phase and matrix phase were two major
factors that challenged the applicability of microme-
chanical models, but the intrinsic reason was the
inherent shortcomings of the models in accounting for
inter-particle interaction. For this reason, Pei et al. [23]
considered the inter-particle interaction using the
micromechanical framework of effective elastic mod-
uli of two-phase composites proposed by Ju and Chen
[24, 25] (here referred as J-C method) to predict the
effective complex modulus of asphalt mastic, which
improved the accuracy of prediction results for asphalt
mastic with filler content up to 50%. In their work, the
parameter Y ðgÞ related to radial distribution function
(RDF) was substituted by a specially-valued param-
eter for simplification. Although this simplification
resulted in convenience in computing, searching for an
exact solution of the parameter representing the
overall interaction of the particles in two-phase
composite was important for practical application.
Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49 Page 3 of 12 49

In this paper, two different assumptions of radial probabilistic pair-particle interaction mechanism, as
distribution functions, the uniform distribution and the shown in Fig. 1c. The conditional probability function
Percus–Yevick (P–Y) distribution function, were Pðx2 jx1 Þ herein represents the probability of finding
adopted to characterize microstructure features of the second sphere centered at x2 when the first sphere
asphalt mixtures in terms of inter-particle interaction, centers at x1 . It depends on the microstructure of the
respectively. After that, the refined J-C method was particulate composite which in turn depends on the
employed to predict the effective dynamic modulus of particle volume fraction and geometry. Under the
asphalt mixtures via a two-step homogenization statistically isotropic assumption, it could be
approach. The predicted dynamic modulus results expressed in Eq. (11).
were compared with experimental testing results at (
N
different temperatures and loading frequencies for Pðx2 jx1 Þ ¼ V gðr Þ; r  2a ð1Þ
model validation. The two traditional micromechan- 0; otherwise
ical models used for particulate composite, Mori–
Tanaka (M–T) model [12] and differential scheme ef- where NV is the number density of particles in a
fective medium (DSEM) model [17], were used for composite, gðr Þ is the radial distribution function and
comparison of prediction results. more details are given in the following section. Finally,
the proposed approximate, probabilistic pairwise par-
ticle interaction solution coupled with the microme-
2 Micromechanical method chanical field equations lead to the prediction
formulation and the detailed derivation can be referred
2.1 Mechanical method considering inter-particle to Ju and Chen [24, 25].
interaction According to J-C method, the effective bulk
modulus, K , and the effective shear modulus, G , of
The mechanical modeling of asphalt mixture consid- the two-phase composites with identical spherical
ering inter-particle interaction starts from the classical particles randomly dispersed in the matrix are
two-phase particulate composite problem. For com- expressed in Eqs. (2) and (3).
 
posites with low particle volume fractions, the tradi- 30ð1  t0 Þ/ð3c1 þ 2c2 Þ
tional single-inclusion based micromechanical models K ¼ K0 1 þ
3a þ 2b  10ð1 þ t0 Þ/ð3c1 þ 2c2 Þ
can well predict its overall properties. However, their ð2Þ
applicability heavily discounted when it comes to the
 
composites with moderate and high particle volume 30ð1  t0 Þ/c2
fractions, such as asphalt mixture. As reported in G ¼ G0 1þ ð3Þ
b  4ð4  5t0 Þ/c2
previous researches, the failure is attributed to its
ability to consider inter-particle interaction where Ki ; Gi ; ti ði ¼ 0; 1Þ are the bulk modulus, shear
[15, 16, 21, 22]. In this study, the micromechanical modulus, and Poisson’s ratio of different phases,
framework established by Ju and Chen [24, 25] for respectively; and / is the particle volume fraction. In
two-phase particulate composite problem with high this study, the subscript ‘‘0’’ denotes the matrix phase
volume fraction of particles is adopted. The approach and ‘‘1’’ denotes the reinforcement phase.
for considering inter-particle interaction is depicted in The interim parameters a, b, c1 and c2 are given in
Fig. 1. Eqs. (4)–(7).
The J-C method can be used for the two-phase a ¼ 2ð5t0  1Þ þ 10 ð1  t
0Þ
composites with high concentrated and randomly K0 G0
located spherical particles, as shown in Fig. 1a. In   ð4Þ
K1  K0 G1  G0
this scheme, the N-particle interaction problem was
decomposed into two subproblems. Firstly, an approx- G0
imate treatment was proposed for the pair-particle b ¼ 2ð4  5t0 Þ þ 15ð1  t0 Þ  ð5Þ
G1  G0
interaction of two identical elastic spherical particles,
as shown in Fig. 1b. Then, the conditional probability
function Pðx2 jx1 Þ was introduced to solve the
49 Page 4 of 12 Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49

Fig. 1 Schematic representation of the resolution strategy in J-C method

5/ the digital image processing (DIP) technology to

c1 ¼ Y ðgÞn1 ð6Þ obtain the extensive microstructure information of
4b2
asphalt and computed the two- and three-point corre-
1 5/ lation functions of components spatial distributions. In
c2 ¼ þ Y ðgÞn2 ð7Þ
2 4b2 this research, two different types of RDF are adopted
for describing the inter-particle distribution pattern in
where two-phase composite. One is the uniform distribution
  96a and the other is Percus–Yevick (P–Y) distribution
n1 ¼ 12 13t0  14t20  ð1  2t0 Þð1 þ t0 Þ function. The uniform distribution function assumes
3a þ 2b
that the distribution of intrusions in the composite is
ð8Þ
isotropic and uniform in terms of statistical measure-
  ments, and thus gðrÞ is identically equal to 1. The
n2 ¼ 6 25  34t0 þ 22t20
36a Percus–Yevick theory has long been used in compu-
 ð1  2t0 Þð1 þ t0 Þ ð9Þ tational statistical mechanics for calculating the radial
3a þ 2b
distribution function and proved to be of great
Z1 Z1=2 reliability for randomly dispersed non-overlapping
a3 composites [29–33].
Y ðgÞ ¼ gðrÞ dr ¼ q2 gðqÞdq ð10Þ
r4 Werthem [29] and Thiele [30] solved the P–Y
2a 0
function for the radial distribution exactly using
where a is the radius of the identical spherical particle; Laplace transforms. Throop and Bearman [31] eval-
r is the spacing between centers of two spheres with uated the solution of P–Y function proposed by
q ¼ a=r. Werthem [29] numerically considering different den-
By substituting Eqs. (2) and (3) into Eq. (11), the sities of particle concentration. Ju and Yanase [26]
effective elastic modulus, E , can be further obtained applied the approximate solution proposed by
using Eq. (11). Trokhymchuk et al. [32] by limiting the volume
9K G fraction particle within 0.47, which was not consistent
E ¼ ð11Þ with the aggregate fractions in most applications of
3K þ G
asphalt mixture. In this paper, a more applicable
analytical solution proposed by Yuan and Sun [33] is
2.2 Radial distribution function (RDF) introduced and the ‘‘normalized’’ g~ðrÞ were expressed
using Eq. (12).
RDF presents the density of the surrounding matter as
a function of the distance from a particular point [26].
Moon and Falchetto [27] and Falchetto et al. [28] used
Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49 Page 5 of 12 49


H ðr  1Þ  g~1 ðr Þ þ H ðr  2Þ  g~2 ðr Þ þ H3 ðr  3Þ  g~3 ðr Þ 1\r=2a\4
g~ðrÞ ¼ ð12Þ
1 r=2a  4

where H ðr  nÞ is the Heaviside function; and Z1=2

g~i ðrÞði ¼ 1; 2; 3Þ are given in Eqs. (13)–(15). Y ð gÞ ¼ q2 gðqÞdq
1X 2
Lðti Þ 0
g~1 ðrÞ ¼  ti  eti ðr1Þ ð13Þ  
r i¼0 S0 ðti Þ Z1=8 Z1=2
2 2 1
¼ q dq þ q g~ dq ð20Þ
2  2q
24g X Lðti Þ 2 0 1=8
g~2 ðrÞ ¼   ti  eti ðr1Þ  Aðti ; r Þ
r i¼0
S0 ðti Þ Z1=2  
21 1
ð14Þ ¼ q g~ dq þ
2q 1536
1=8
2 
72g2 X Lðti Þ 3
g~3 ðrÞ ¼  ti  eti ðr1Þ  Bðti ; r Þ ð15Þ In conclusion, the value of YðgÞ can be exactly
r i¼0 S0 ðti Þ
solved if the particle volume fraction / is given.
where ti ði ¼ 0; 1; 2Þ are the three roots of SðtÞ ¼ 0 and However, considering its complication, MATLAB is
the parameters in the equations are given in Eq. (16)– used to code for the numerical integral of Eq. (20) in
(19). this paper.

SðtÞ ¼ ð1  /Þ2 t3 þ 6/ð1  /Þt2 þ 18/2 t 2.3 Two-step approach for asphalt mixture
 12/ð1 þ 2/Þ ð16Þ dynamic modulus
 
/ According to the general classification method of
LðtÞ ¼ 1þ t þ 2/ þ 1 ð17Þ
2 composites, asphalt binder acts as continuous matrix
  and the aggregates and voids act as reinforcement in
L0 ðtÞ S00 ðtÞ 1 1 the composite of asphalt mixture. However, due to the
Aðt; r Þ ¼  þ r2þ ð18Þ
LðtÞ 2S0 ðtÞ 2 t size effect of aggregate, different sized aggregates
 behave different functions in asphalt mixture. In the
L0 ðtÞ 2 6L0 ðtÞ 2ðr  3Þ
Bðt; r Þ ¼ 6 þ þ
LðtÞ LðtÞ  t t
9
6L0 ðtÞ  ðr  3Þ
þ þ ðr  3Þ3 8
LðtÞ φ=0.05
ð19Þ 7
00 2 0
3½S ðtÞ S ðtÞS ðtÞ 000 φ=0.2
þ 6 φ=0.4
½S0 ðtÞ2 φ=0.6
  5
g (r )

3S00 ðtÞ 3L0 ðtÞ 1

 0 r3þ 4
S ðt Þ LðtÞ t
3
Figure 2 shows the normalized RDF g~ðrÞ with four
2
given particle volume fractions.
According to the ‘‘normalized’’ expression of g~ðrÞ 1
in Eq. (12), the definite integral in Eq. (10) can be 0
1 2 3 4
rewritten in Eq. (20).
r/2a

Fig. 2 The P–Y radial distribution function

49 Page 6 of 12
asphalt mixture, asphalt mastic consisting of asphalt
binder and mineral fillers serves well as continuous
matrix that binds mineral aggregates together [34].
Therefore, the coarse and fine aggregates are coated by
asphalt mastic, but not the pure asphalt binder.
Previous studies have predicted the effective proper-
ties of asphalt mixture from the known asphalt mastic
and mineral aggregates properties [18, 35]. Alterna-
tively, FAM consisting of asphalt binder, fillers, and
fine aggregates has been considered as the matrix
phase, and the coarse aggregates (as well as voids) can
be considered as the dispersed phase in FAM. This
assumption is recommended in previous literature on
micromechanics modeling since it is difficult to
simulate the interaction contacts between large num-
bers of fine aggregates [36–39]. In this study, asphalt
mixture was considered as a three-phase composite
consisting of FAM, coarse aggregates, and voids.
Although the micromechanical ensemble-volume
averaged field equations of J-C method were initially
constructed for multiphase particulate composites.
However, it is practically impossible to obtain the
exact expression that involves eigenstrains in homo-
geneities and many-particle interaction problem
[24, 25]. For this reason, only the approximate yet
accurate method was established to account for inter-
particle interaction for two-phase composites. As a
result, the approximate method for two-phase com-
posites was adopted and a two-step homogenization
scheme was used to predict the effective property of
asphalt mixture using J-C method. In the first step, the
elastic coarse aggregates were embedded into the
viscoelastic FAM, and the mixes were homogenized to
form the effective media. Considering the viscoelastic
behavior of FAM phase, the effective dynamic
modulus of the effective media can be obtained
through the J-C method coupled with the elastic–
viscoelastic correspondence principle by replacing the
bulk, shear and elastic modulus with its corresponding
viscoelastic forms, as show in Eqs. (2), (3) and (11)
[13]. In the second step, the voids were idealized as
special particles with zero modulus and embedded into
the effective media to form the final composite of
asphalt mixture. The J-C method was applied again to
acquire the effective dynamic modulus of asphalt
mixture. The implementation process of the two-step
approach was schematically shown in Fig. 3.
Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49
Fig. 3 Schematic diagram of the two-step approach
Table 1 Properties of SK70 asphalt binder
Indexes Test value
Penetration at 25 °C/0.1 mm 72 (virgin); 59 (aged)
Ductility at 15 °C/cm [ 150 (virgin); 94 (aged)
Softening point/°C 48.2
Brookfield viscosity at 60 °C/Pas 182.0
Flash point/°C 345
Density at 15 °C/g cm-3 1.030
3 Dynamic modulus testing
3.1 Mixture design and sample fabrication
In order to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed
micromechanical method for predicting dynamic
modulus of asphalt mixture, AC-13 asphalt mixture
was prepared and tested. The SK70 asphalt binder was
selected to prepare asphalt mixture specimens. The
basic rheological properties of asphalt binder are
shown in Table 1, including penetration, ductility,
softening point, Brookfield viscosity, flash point, and
density. The mass loss, after rolling thin-film oven
(RTFO) test at 163 °C and 5 h was 0.1%. The
limestone aggregates and fillers were selected. The
aggregate gradations in asphalt mixture and FAM are
selected according to the Technical Specification for
Construction of Highway Asphalt Pavements (JTG
F40-2004) in China, as shown in Table 2. The
Marshall method was used for mix design and the
optimal content of asphalt binder was determined to be
4.7% for AC-13 asphalt mixture. The proportions of
fine aggregates, mineral filler, and asphalt binder in
FAM were kept similar to those of asphalt mixture.
Accordingly, the asphalt content in FAM was 12.96%.
For FAM, the static compacting method was
applied to prepare the cylindrical specimens with
Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49 Page 7 of 12 49

Table 2 Aggregate gradation for asphalt mixture and FAM

Size (mm) Passing percentage (%) Density (g/cm3)
Mixture FAM

16 100
13.2 95.05 2.704
9.5 72.23 2.695
4.75 46.26 2.696
2.36 33.13 100 2.713
1.18 24.09 72.71 2.700
0.6 17.01 51.34 2.701
0.3 11.83 35.70 2.658
0.15 8.14 24.56 2.526
0.075 5.09 15.35 2.643
\ 0.075 / / 2.702

100 mm in height and 100 mm in diameter, which

follows the standard test methods of Bitumen and
Bituminous mixtures for highway Engineering (JTG
E20-2011) in China. It is used that the static
compaction method has been used for FAM in the
previous literature [40, 41]. For asphalt mixture, the
gyratory compacting method was applied to firstly
prepare the cylindrical specimen with 165 mm in
height and 150 mm in diameter, and the air voids of
specimens were controlled as 4%. The compacted
specimens of asphalt mixture were then cored and
sawed to have 100 mm in height and 100 mm in
diameter.
3.2 Dynamic modulus test
The IPC UTM-25 device was employed to conduct
dynamic modulus test at different temperatures and
frequencies, as shown in Fig. 4. The test temperatures
were 5 °C, 10 °C, 20 °C for FAM specimens, and
5 °C, 20 °C, 40 °C for asphalt mixture specimens,
respectively. The lower testing temperature was used
for FAM considering the stability of FAM was less at
high temperatures. The loading frequencies were set as
0.1 Hz, 1 Hz, 2 Hz, 5 Hz, 10 Hz, 20 Hz, and 25 Hz
for both FAM and asphalt mixture. The test temper-
atures and frequencies for dynamic modulus test were
adopted following the standard test methods of
Bitumen and Bituminous mixtures for highway Engi-
neering (JTG E20-2011) in China.
Fig. 4 Test setup for dynamic modulus testing
The loading levels were applied to control strains
under 50–150 micro strains in the asphalt mixture and
maintain the assumption of linear viscoelasticity,
following the suggestion of AASHTO T342. The
possible damage development in the asphalt mixture
during dynamic modulus test was not considered. The
FAM was tested at lower temperatures with smaller
loads to considering the modulus of FAM is much
smaller than that of asphalt mixture. For both FAM
and asphalt mixture, three replicates were prepared for
each test temperature and frequency. The mean values
of every three replicates were finally adopted as
experimental results.
For better prediction and comparison, the master
curves of dynamic modulus at 10 °C were established
according to test results in Figs. 5 and 6. The master
curves function was expressed using Eq. (21).
a
logjEj ¼ d þ ð21Þ
1þ ebc log fr
where E is the dynamic modulus (Pa); fr is the
reduced frequency (Hz); and d; a; b; c are the fitting
parameters.
The reduced frequency fr could be determined from
the test frequency f according to Eq. (22).
49 Page 8 of 12 Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49

11 respectively. The fitting results of maser curves using

Eq. (21) and time–temperature shift factors using
10 Eq. (23) were shown in Table 3. The very high R-
square values indicate that the fitting function capture
log |E*| (Pa)

9 the trend of data points very well.

As expected, the dynamic modulus of asphalt
8
mixture and FAM increased as the loading frequency
increases or temperature decreased. The dynamic
modulus of FAM was smaller than those of asphalt
7
mixture at the same temperature and loading fre-
quency. However, the frequency dependency was
6
-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 more significant for the dynamic modulus of FAM,
Reduced frequency log( fr ) (Hz) which was caused by the higher asphalt binder content
in the FAM as compared to asphalt mixture. On the
Fig. 5 Master curve of dynamic modulus of FAM and asphalt other hand, the time–temperature superposition fac-
mixture tors of FAM and asphalt mixtures were found very
similar with small differences at high temperatures.
1

FAM 4 Modulus prediction and model validation

0
Mixture

4.1 Specified input parameters

log α(T)

-1

The mineral aggregate is considered as elastic material

-2 with shear modulus of 19,000 MPa and Poisson’s ratio
of 0.2 [37, 42]. The bulk and shear modulus of the
-3 voids are considered as zero. The Poisson’s ratio of
FAM is assumed as 0.3 at 10 °C. Based on these
-4 materials parameters, the dynamic shear modulus and
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 bulk modulus of FAM could be determined. In the first
step of prediction, the volume fraction of coarse
aggregates was calculated to be as 59.6% according to
Fig. 6 Time–temperature superposition factor of FAM and the density and gradation of asphalt mixture. The
asphalt mixture
volume fraction of air voids for the second prediction
step is 4.01%, which is the air void content of AC-13
fr ¼ f  aðT Þ ð22Þ
mixture used in the experiment.
where aðT Þ is the time–temperature superposition The parameter YðgÞ is equal to the constant of
factor, which can be solved using Eq. (23). 0.0417 (1/24) using the uniform distribution assump-
tion regardless of the volume fractions of reinforce-
c 1 ðT  T R Þ ment phase (e.g. coarse aggregates and voids). In the
log½aðT Þ ¼ ð23Þ
c 2 þ T  TR P–Y radial distribution case, the values of parameter
where T is the testing temperature; TR is the reference YðgÞ used at each step of the two-step approach can be
temperature, which was set as 10 °C in this work; and determined by solving Eqs. (10) and (12). Substituting
c1 and c2 are the fitting parameters. the volume fraction / into Eqs. (13)–(19), the expres-
The calculated master curves at the reference sion of radial distribution function gðr Þ can be
temperature (10 °C) and the corresponding time– obtained. However, considering that the integral
temperature superposition factors for FAM and expression is complicated, the numerical approach is
asphalt mixture were shown in Figs. 5 and 6, adopted to obtain its numerical solution using pro-
graming in MATLAB.
Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49
Table 3 The fitting parameters of master curves for dynamic modulus of FAM and asphalt mixture
d a
FAM 7.5157 2.5446
Asphalt mixture 8.9265 1.6014
4.2 Comparison of measured and predicted
modulus
Accosting to the input parameters, the two-step
approach was applied to predict the effective dynamic
modulus of asphalt mixture. The predicted results
using the uniform distribution and P–Y distribution
functions were compared to the experimental results,
as shown in Fig. 7.
As can be found from Fig. 7, the differences
between prediction results using the uniform distribu-
tion and P–Y distribution were very small at high
frequencies, and both models could well predict the
effective dynamic modulus of asphalt mixture as
compared to experimental results. The difference
between the predicted results due to different distri-
bution assumptions gradually increased as the loading
frequency decreased, while the measured dynamic
modulus fell in the range between those obtained using
the uniform distribution and P–Y distribution.
In general, the prediction results of uniform distri-
bution were always smaller than those of P–Y
distribution in the whole frequency domain. The
1E+11
1E+10
log |E *| (Pa)
1E+09
Measured
1E+08 Uniform distribution
P-Y distribution
1E+07
-4 -2 0 2
Reduced frequency log( fr ) (Hz)
Fig. 7 Prediction results of J-C method with two radial
distribution assumptions for dynamic modulus of asphalt
mixture
Page 9 of 12 49
b c c1 c2 R2
- 1.0935 0.8123 - 15.2350 128.2558 0.997
- 1.0672 0.7962 - 12.4138 93.8682 0.997
prediction results using these two distributions could
be served as the upper and lower bounds of J-C method
for the effective dynamic modulus of asphalt mixture,
respectively. The uniform distribution assumption is
suitable only for describing composites with very
small volume fraction of particle intrusions. In this
case, the inter-particle interaction contributes little to
the stiffening effect of asphalt mixture, and thus, the
predictions of uniform distribution could be used as
the lower bound of effective dynamic modulus. On the
other hand, as the P–Y function assumes the state of
thermodynamic equilibrium distribution, which
describe random motion of particles suspended in a
fluid with Brownian motion [24, 25]. For two-phase
solid composites like asphalt mixture, the aggregate
interaction may not be fully captured by Brownian
motion. Thus the P–Y function may overestimate the
distribution probability of particles in the near neigh-
borhood with the high aggregate volume fraction.
Therefore, the predictions of P–Y distribution could be
used as the upper bound of predicted dynamic
modulus.
4.3 Comparison to DSEM and M–T models
In order to further evaluate the effective dynamic
modulus of asphalt mixture predicted using J-C
method, the prediction results were compared to those
obtained using two existing micromechanics models
based on single inclusion (M–T model [12] and DSEM
model [17]). In the M–T model, particle inclusions are
embedded into a matrix with the average strain and the
average strain of particle inclusions is solved by
single-inclusion theory in the infinite medium.
According to the M–T model, the effective bulk
modulus, K , and the effective shear modulus, G ,
4 could be determined using Eqs. (24) and (25).
49 Page 10 of 12
/K0
K ¼ K0 þ K0 3ð1/ÞK0
ð24Þ
K1 K0 þ 3K1 þ4G0
/G0
G ¼ G0 þ G0 6ð1/ÞðK0 þ2G0 Þ
ð25Þ
G1 G0 þ 5ð3K1 þ4G0 Þ
The differential scheme effective medium (DSEM)
based model proposed by Kim and Buttlar [17] was
also selected for comparison. In the DSEM method,
the established differential process of gradually
embedding inclusions into the matrix neglects the
inter-inclusion effect and solves the limitation of the
Eshelby single-inclusion theory, which satisfies appli-
cations for predicting effective modulus of composites
with high volume fractions. In the DSEM model, the
effective bulk modulus, K , and the effective shear
modulus, G , could be determined using Eqs. (26) and
(27).
 void and coarse aggregates (e.g. shape, volume
3K þ 4G
K ¼ K1  ð1  /ÞðK1  K0 Þ ð26Þ
3K0 þ 4G0
G ¼ G1
 2=5 
G 3K þ 4G 1=5
 ð1  /ÞðG1  G0 Þ
G0 3K0 þ 4G0
ð27Þ
The prediction process of effective dynamic mod-
ulus for M–T model [12] and DSEM [17] model were
extended based on the elastic–viscoelastic correspon-
dence principle using a two-step approach. The
prediction results of effective dynamic modulus of
asphalt mixture using J-C method, M–T model, and
DSEM model were compared in Fig. 8.
The results show that, compared to the M–T model
and DSEM model, the J-C method proposed in this
study can predict the effective dynamic modulus of
asphalt mixture with higher accuracy. The J-C method
assuming P–Y distribution provides the highest accu-
racy at the low frequencies; while the J-C method
assuming the uniform distribution has better accuracy
at the intermediate frequencies. The M–T model and
DSEM model trend to underestimate the effective
dynamic modulus at lower frequencies, and their
predictions are slightly smaller than that of J-C method
assuming the uniform distribution. The reason is that
the single-inclusion based models fail to consider the
inter-particle effect.
Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49
1E+11
Uniform distribution
P-Y distribution
M-T
Predicted modulus (Pa)
DSEM
1E+10
1E+09
1E+08
1E+08 1E+09 1E+10 1E+11
Measured modulus (Pa)
Fig. 8 Comparison of prediction results using J-C method,
DSEM model, and M–T model for dynamic modulus of asphalt
mixture
It is noted that the microstructure characteristics of
fraction, size distribution) are of great significance to
mechanical behavior of asphalt mixture, such as
fatigue performance, which has been proved by
previous researches [43–45]. However, the effect of
void size or aggregate shapes on dynamic modulus
was found not significant as compared to the total void
ratio or total aggregate fraction [46, 47]. In this study,
only the total void ratio was considered without the
detailed size distributions. The two-step homogeniza-
tion scheme was established based on the assumption
that the void volume fraction of FAM was approxi-
mately zero and the total void fraction was considered
in the second step. The assumption of sphere particles
in the J-C method neglected the effect of the shape of
void or coarse aggregate. Future work need be
conducted to consider the effect of void size and
distribution and coarse aggregate shape in the
improved microstructure model.
5 Conclusions
In this study, the J-C method was adopted for
micromechanical analysis of composite with two
types of radial distribution assumptions for intrusions,
namely uniform distribution and P–Y distribution. A
two-step approach was proposed with elastic–vis-
coelastic correspondence principle to predict the
Materials and Structures (2019) 52:49
effective dynamic modulus of asphalt mixture at
different frequencies.
It was found that the uniform distribution and P–Y
distribution could well predict the effective dynamic
modulus under high loading frequencies, but the
differences between the prediction results using two
distribution assumptions gradually increased with the
decreasing frequency. The prediction results from the
uniform distribution and P–Y distribution served as
the upper and lower bounds of dynamic modulus for
asphalt mixture, respectively. The J-C method assum-
ing P–Y distribution provides better accuracy at the
low frequencies; while the J-C method assuming the
uniform distribution has better accuracy at the inter-
mediate frequencies. The proposed J-C method shows
better prediction accuracy as compared to two existing
micromechanical models based on single inclusion,
M–T and DSEM models. The study findings indicate
that the mechanical properties of asphalt mixture can
be predicted based on the laboratory tests conducted at
the FAM level and the gradation of coarse aggregate
using appropriate micromechanics models. Future
work need be conducted to validate the proposed
micromechanical model using independent experi-
ment data.
Acknowledgements This research was partially supported by
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [Grant Number
2017M620434].
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no
conflict of interest.
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