Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Characterizing the three-stage rutting behavior of asphalt pavement

with semi-rigid base by using UMAT in ABAQUS
Jiupeng Zhang a, Cunzhen Zhu a, Xueqian Li a, Jianzhong Pei a,⇑, Jun Chen b
a
School of Highway, Chang’an University, Middle Section of South Erhuan Road, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710064, China
b
College of Civil and Transportation Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210098, China

h i g h l i g h t s

UMAT of selected constitutive model is verified for pavement rutting simulation.

Three-stage rutting behavior is recognized under different axle load conditions.

Accelerating damage evolution, heavier load induces bigger rut depth and rate.

Axle-load conversion index is determined based on rut equivalence principle.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A reliable UMAT subroutine of selected constitutive model of asphalt mixture is developed and applied to
Received 9 October 2016 characterize the three-stage rutting behavior of asphalt pavement by using ABAQUS. It is indicated that
Received in revised form 24 February 2017 the heavier traffic load not only induces the greater rutting depth, but also accelerates the rutting rate,
Accepted 27 February 2017
causing the pavement earlier enter into rutting failure with shortened service life. The damage evolution
and axle-load conversion are further discussed. Results show that the pavement subjected to heavier axle
loads has the greater damage and faster damage evolution. The axle-load conversion index is 5.97 accord-
Keywords:
ing to rut equivalence principle.
Asphalt pavement
Three-stage rutting behavior
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Axle-load conversion index
UMAT subroutine

1. Introduction
With the increase of road traffic volume, heavy load and over-
load issues remain serious and rutting is still one of the most seri-
ous diseases with asphalt pavement. The research of asphalt
pavement rutting becomes a tough problem due to the inherent
viscoelastic damage property of asphalt mixture and the various
external affecting factors, including temperature, load, and etc.
Presently, the finite element method has a wide application in
the road research, and many scholars used such finite element soft-
ware as ANSYS and ABAQUS to study the permanent deformation
of asphalt mixture and rutting of asphalt pavement.
Zhao et al. [1] used ABAQUS to establish a 3D finite element
creep model, finding that pavement rutting under different tem-
peratures and loads shows a non-linear development trend. Based
on the Maxwell model and the Drucker-Prager model, Teng et al.
[2] used ANSYS to study the deformation property of surface
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: peijianzhong@126.com (J. Pei).
course and roadbed respectively, finding that load level and
roadbed modulus have a significant influence on rutting. Yao
et al. [3] used the creep model and the elastic model within ABA-
QUS to study the correlations between rutting depth and load time,
between rutting depth and thickness of surface course respec-
tively, finding that the theoretical values and the actually mea-
sured values are consistent. Pirabarooban et al. [4] used ABAQUS
to build a 3D finite element model, and adopted an elastic vis-
coplastic creep model to study the correlation between the simula-
tion results and the actually measured indoor APA results. Xia [5]
used ABAQUS to establish a 3D finite element model for dynamic
contact between wheels and road surface, and predicted response
and damage of road surface by analyzing fatigue cracking and rut-
ting. Li et al. [6] used ABAQUS to establish a 2D finite element
model on basis of the Bailey-Norton elastic-plastic model and the
Mohr-Coulomb plastic model, studied the anti-rutting perfor-
mance of four different pavement structures, as well as the influ-
ence of external factors such as temperature, tire contact
pressure and the number of loading on the forming of rutting.
Cao et al. [7] used ABAQUS to establish a 3D finite element model,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.02.152
0950-0618/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507
and analyzed elastic viscoplastic behaviors of road surface liable to
moving loads, and proposed several solutions to rutting preven-
tion. Zhu et al. [8] used ANSYS to establish a 3D finite element
model, and analyzed the law of rutting development, and put for-
ward measures to improve anti-rutting performance. Imaninasab
et al. [9] used ABAQUS to establish a 3D finite element model to
analyze the anti-rutting performance of big-interspaced asphalt
pavement under different rubber contents through static and
repetitive load tests. Hu et al. [10] used ANSYS to establish a 3D
finite element model to analyze the contribution of all layers of
dense asphalt mixture to rutting.
As to the consistent test results between finite element 2D
models and 3D models, many scholars also conducted relevant
researches. Pi et al. found that there was a small deviation accord-
ing to a comparison between the indirect tensile test results of the
2D model and the 3D model [11]. Hua and White used the time
hardening model within ABAQUS and also proved the essential
consistency between predicted rutting values made by the 2D
model and the 3D model [12]. These mentioned findings show that
finite element software such as ABAQUS and ANSYS have been
widely applied. Generally, the material model inherent in the finite
element software is used to study the creep property of asphalt
mixture. However, under repeated loading, permanent strain of
asphalt mixture can be classified into three stages: the primary
stage is the migration period in which permanent strain enlarges
instantaneously; the secondary stage is the stability period in
which the permanent strain increases stably in a linear way and
this period constitutes the most part of the whole process; the ter-
tiary stage is the damage period in which the permanent strain
increases rapidly until any damage occurs [13], as shown in Fig. 1.
There are many models featuring asphalt mixture, including the
empirical models, and mechanical constitutive models. The follow-
ing empirical models are mainly used:
① Semi-logarithmic model [14]
ep ¼ a þ b log N
② Power function model
Monismith model [15]:
ep ¼ aNb
VESYS model [16]:
epn ¼ ler Na
Superpave model [17]:
Permanent strain rate
Permanent strain
strain
strain rate
Decelerating Stationary Accelerating
Loading cycles
Fig. 1. Three-stage permanent deformation behavior of asphalt mixture.
497
log ep ¼ log ep ð1Þ þ S log N ð4Þ
AASHTO 2002 model [18]:
ep
log ¼ 3:74938 þ 0:4262 log N þ 2:02755 log T ð5Þ
er
Tseng and Lytton model [19]:
b
ep ¼ e0 eðq=NÞ ð6Þ
wherein ep is accumulated permanent strain; er is rebound strain; N
is loading repetition; epn is permanent strain after one loading cycle;
ep(1) is the permanent strain after the first loading cycle; l, a, S, a
and b are regression parameters.
By calculating the derivatives of all above models, we can get
strain rates which always decrease as N or t increases. Notably,
none of these common models can fully describe the law of
three-stage strain of asphalt mixture. And the existing numerical
simulation using the asphalt mixture constitutive model can only
reflect the strain property of the primary stage or the secondary
stage, and few researchers have proposed a model that can reflect
the asphalt mixture permanent strain in the three stages. There-
fore, for a better understanding of the three-stage rutting behavior
of asphalt pavement, the objectives and scopes of this paper are to:
(1) identify a mechanical model capable of describe the three-
stage permanent strain property of asphalt mixture, and
then develop and verify the UMAT (User-defined Material)
subroutine that can be integrated in the master routine of
ABAQUS for rutting simulation of asphalt pavement,
(2) using to the compiled UMAT subroutine, establish a 2D finite
element model to perform the rutting simulation for a typi-
cal asphalt pavement with semi-rigid base under different
traffic loads, and characterize three-stage rutting behavior
of asphalt pavement and effects of traffic load.
ð1Þ 2. UMAT development and Verification for asphalt mixture
2.1. Application of UMAT subroutine in rutting simulation
UMAT (User-defined Material) is a subroutine that defines
ð2Þ material mechanical behavior and is compiled in FORTRAN lan-
guage. It can be used to define various material constitutive models
not included in the ABAQUS material library, and accordingly
ð3Þ enhances the application range and flexibility. Therefore, some
researchers use the fundamental principles of the material subrou-
tine (UMAT) to develop material model subroutine that can be
called in ABAQUS finite element software based on relevant consti-
tutive models, thus to learn the creep property of asphalt mixture
and conduct numerical simulation and analysis of rutting of
asphalt pavement.
Based on Drucker–Prager yield criterion, Yesuf and Hoff used
ABAQUS to establish a finite element model [20], applied this
model in the UMAT subroutine, studied the contribution of
roadbed deformation to rutting, and found that the simulation
result basically tallied with the indoor test result. Saleeb et al. used
ABAQUS to establish a 2D finite element model [21], and intro-
duced the elastic viscoplastic model into finite element analysis
based on the UMAT subroutine. Correlation between APA simula-
tion and practical test is established according to comparison
between the APA test results of the three different mixtures and
the simulation results. Arabani et al. gained performance parame-
ters of the materials through repeated loading tests [22]. They used
ABAQUS to establish a 2D rutting test model, introduced creep
power law model, and found that the simulation results of rutting
tests tally with the actually measured values. Abu-Farsakh et al.
[23] used ABAQUS to establish a 2D finite element model, used
498 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507
an elasticoplastic interface model, together with UMAT subroutine,
to analyze the reinforcement of geotechnical grille to flexible pave-
ment base. Mwanza et al. [24] used ABAQUS to establish a 2D finite
element model, adopted default creep and elastic viscoplastic
models, together with the UMAT subroutine, to study the perma-
nent deformation. They also found consistency between predicted
values and actually measured values. Ban et al. [25] used ABAQUS
to establish a 3D finite element model of pavement structure,
applied Schapery non-linear viscoelastic constitutive model,
together with the UMAT subroutine, into ABAQUS, conducted
creep and recovery tests under different stresses and temperatures
through numerical simulation and indoor experiment methods,
and predicted the mixture’s performance according to the rutting
and fatigue cracking. Darabi et al. [26] used ABAQUS to establish
a finite element model, proposed a hardening relaxation model
related to phenomenological rate. In combination with UMAT sub-
routine, it calibrated and verified this model by comparing the pre-
dicted values and the test values achieved by the model, thus
making this model a reliable tool.
2.2. Selection of three-stage permanent strain model of asphalt
mixture
Kaloush and Witczak introduced equivalent axle loads, thus
combining the models in the initial stage and that in the damage
stage [27]:
For initial stage ep ¼ aNb
For damage stage ep ¼ a1 eb1 N


RD23 ¼ a  ESALb þ c  edESAL  1
Furthermore, Monismith et al. also proposed a double logarith-
mic cubic function [15]:
log ep ¼ C 0 þ C 1 ðlog NÞ þ C 2 ðlog NÞ þ C 3 ðlog NÞ
2 3
Based on the previous analyses and the characteristics of strain
rates of different permanent strain stages, Zhou[28] took FS as the
critical loading repetitions of the decelerating and stationary stage,
FN as the critical loading repetitions of the stationary and acceler-
ating stage, and gave a empirical description of the three-stage per-
manent strain property using the piecewise function. For the
decelerating stage, the power function was applied to describe
the relationship between permanent strain and loading repetitions,
as shown in Eq. (11).
ep ¼ aNb N < FS
wherein a is the permanent strain as N = 1; b reflects the change
rate of permanent strain under loading cycles N.
The permanent strain in the stationary stage increases linearly
with the increasing loading repetition, so it can be expressed in lin-
ear model as shown in Eq. (12).
ep ¼ eFS þ cðN  F S Þ FS 6 N < FN
wherein eF S is the permanent strain at the starting point of the sta-
bility period; eF S ¼ aðF S Þb ; c is regression coefficient which reflects
the strain increasing rate.
The permanent strain in the accelerating stage was expressed in
a exponential function, as shown in Eq. (13).
ep ¼ eFN þ dðef ðNF N Þ  1Þ N P FN
wherein eF N is the permanent strain at starting point of the acceler-
ating stage; d and f are regression coefficients; eF N ¼ eF S þ cðF N  F S Þ.
This model can describe the three-stage permanent strain prop-
erty of asphalt mixture, and reflect strain rate features of different
stages. However, this is an empirical method, and has to adopt
piecewise function to meet mathematical fitting. The physical sig-
nificance of its parameters is vague, and it is also inconvenient to
use the model for the mechanical analysis of pavement structure.
It is necessary to identity a model which can reflect the three-
stage permanent strain of asphalt mixture, which could be applied
for the mechanical analysis. For this purpose, Zhang et al. [29–33]
considered the characteristics of three-phase permanent deforma-
tion as the results of a competition between damage and harden-
ing, in which a damage variable and a hardening variable are
introduced to modify Burger’s model. For describing the three-
stage permanent deformation behavior, the series-wound dashpot
of the Burger’s model is modified by Usan’s hardening variable, as
shown in Fig. 2. In Fig. 2, gv p is the viscosity of modified series-
wound dashpot, Ee is the elastic modulus of series-wound spring
is represent, Ev e is the elastic modulus of shunt-wound spring is
represent, and gv e is the viscosity of shunt-wound dashpot is
represent.
The repeated load consisting of a haversine loading period and
rest period is employed to simulate the actual vehicle loading on
the asphalt pavement, and Kachanov’s equation for damage evolu-
tion is adopted to deduce the a viscoelastic-damage constitutive
model by using Lemaitre’s effective stress principle. The detail
derivation for viscoelastic-damage constitutive model can be
found in Ref. [30]. The permanent strain of asphalt mixture could
ð7Þ be expressed in the following Eq. (14).
1
ð8Þ eDp ¼ P1 rP04 NP5 ð14Þ
ð1  N=P2 ÞP3
ð9Þ where r0 is the peak value of load, N is the loading repetitions, P 1 ,
P2 , P 3 , P4 , and P 5 are the material regression parameters.
It is proved that Eq. (14) can better describe three-stage strain
properties of asphalt mixture, so this model is finally selected to
develop its material subroutine which can be integrated in the
ð10Þ
main routine by using UMAT programming principles and Fortune
language. To ensure normal operation of the UMAT subroutine,
users are not allowed to modify the remaining parts of ABAQUS
while the subroutine is running to complete its specific functions
during the programming. That is, the parameters that users can
define are only those ‘‘defined ones” according to UMAT rules. If
any other parameters are modified by the subroutine, the final
results achieved will be unreliable.
2.3. Verification of UMAT subroutine
ð11Þ
2.3.1. Finite element analysis model
The developed UMAT subroutine was used for numerical simu-
lation and verification of the indoor repeated loading permanent
deformation test (RLPD). The RLPD test adopted cylindrical speci-
men with a diameter of 100 mm and a height of 150 mm. As the
ð12Þ
ð13Þ
Fig. 2. Modified Burgers model [30].
 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507
geometric dimension, load and boundary conditions are axisym-
metric, an axisymmetric unit model was used to simplify the sim-
ulations, as shown in Fig. 3.
The axisymmetric specimen model size is 50 mm  150 mm,
and the loading head and base are simulated by analytic rigid body
with the size a bit greater than the width of the axisymmetric
model. The grid size of specimen model is 2 mm  2 mm, and the
unit type is CAX8I. Before analysis, boundary conditions are also
needed to set. In this simulation, set symmetric boundary condi-
tions for the lower surface of the cylindrical specimen to control
the specimen’s translational degrees of freedom in both directions,
namely U1 = U2 = 0; set boundary conditions for its upper surface
boundary to limit translation of the specimen to direction 1,
namely U1 = 0. Furthermore, corresponding restrictions on sym-
metric axial regions should be set for the axisymmetric model to
limit the translation of the axial plane of symmetry to direction
1, namely U1 = 0. The finite element analysis model is shown in
Fig. 3.
2.3.2. Simulation results and verification
Asphalt mixtures are classified into continuously graded and
gap-graded mixtures by mixture component and mineral aggre-
gate skeleton, dense-graded asphalt concrete mixture (AC) and
stone matrix asphalt (SMA) are two kinds of typical gradation
respectively. In this paper, three kinds of asphalt concretes were
selected to perform the RLPD tests and numerical simulations,
which are named as SMA-13, AC-20 and AC-25 according to the
Chinese specification, JTG F40-2004 (Ministry of Transport, 2004)
[34]. The numbers of 13, 20 and 25 denote the nominal maximum
sizes of the aggregates are 13.2 mm, 19 mm and 26.5 mm
respectively.
UTM-100 (Universal Testing Machine) was employed to con-
duct RLPD Test. Because the standard tire pressure is 0.7Mpa in
China, and the overload pressure is generally no more than
1.0 MPa. In addition, it has been reported that the rutting mainly
occurs when the pavement temperature is higher than 30 °C, and
the highest temperature of asphalt pavement is no more than
70 °C [35]. The test temperatures were set as 40 °C, 50 °C and
60 °C. The repeated load was applied with the period of 1 s, con-
sisting of 0.1 s haversine loading followed by 0.9 s rest, and the
peak values of the haversine loads were set as 0.7 MPa, 0.8 MPa
and 1.0 MPa for all the kinds of mixtures. According to the RLPD
Fig. 3. Simplified model of the permanent strain test of indoor repeated loading.
499
test results, the permanent strains were collected at the end of
each loading cycle, and the nonlinear regression analysis was con-
ducted to obtain the UMAT input parameters.
For verifications of UMAT subroutine, the SMA-13 specimens
tested at 60 °C, AC-20 specimens tested at 50 °C, and AC-25 speci-
mens tested at 40 °C were selected, and the determined UMAT
input parameters are shown in Table 1. Besides the five UMAT
input parameters (P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5), two elasticity parameters
should also be determined, including the elastic modulus and Pois-
son ratio for the numerical simulation. The elastic moduli of differ-
ent kinds of asphalt mixture were obtained from compressive
modulus tests at the corresponding temperatures, and it is
assumed that the Poisson ratio of asphalt mixture does not vary
with temperatures, which is fixed as 0.25. The comparisons of per-
manent strains obtained from the finite element simulation with
the experimental results are shown in Figs. 4–6.
It is found that there is minor difference between the developed
UMAT subroutine simulation results and the experiment results,
and the maximum error is lower than 10%. The developed material
subroutine can be well integrated into the master routine of ABA-
QUS and the simulated results are reliable and consistent with the
experimental results, which can fully describe the three-stage per-
manent deformation feature of asphalt mixture and asphalt
pavement.
3. Finite element modeling for rutting simulation under heavy
load
3.1. Analyses of asphalt pavement structure and equivalent
temperature field
Asphalt pavement with semi-rigid base is a commonly used in
China. The semi-rigid base is often formed with inorganic binding
and stabilized materials, such as cement-stabilized macadam and
lime-fly ash stabilized macadam. This paper takes cement stabi-
lized macadam for semi-rigid base and lime-fly ash stabilized soil
for sub-base, as shown in Fig. 7.
Asphalt mixture is a kind of typical temperature-sensitive
materials, so its mechanical property and performance vary signif-
icantly with temperatures, and the rutting of asphalt pavement
obviously are closely related to the temperature field. According
to the definition of effective rutting temperature [36], the complex
500 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507

Table 1
Materials parameters of different asphalt mixtures.

Mixture type Temperature (°C) Load (MPa) Elasticity parameters UMAT input parameters
Elastic modulus Poisson ratio P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
SMA13 60 0.7 425 0.25 0.2505 5125 0.5 1.433 0.3
0.8 425 0.25 0.2505 3125 0.5 1.424 0.3
1.0 425 0.25 0.2505 1950 0.5 1.412 0.3
AC25 50 0.7 400 0.25 0.27 7250 0.5 1.425 0.3
0.8 400 0.25 0.27 4310 0.5 1.428 0.3
1.0 400 0.25 0.27 2400 0.5 1.423 0.3
AC16 40 0.7 525 0.25 0.3092 12,510 0.5 1.423 0.3
0.8 525 0.25 0.3299 6130 0.5 1.425 0.3
1.0 525 0.25 0.2664 2040 0.5 1.424 0.3

Fig. 6. Comparison of measured and simulated permanent strains of AC-16 asphalt

Fig. 4. Comparison of measured and simulated permanent strains of SMA-13 mixture.
asphalt mixture.

Fig. 5. Comparison of measured and simulated permanent strains of AC-25 asphalt

mixture.
Fig. 7. The structure of asphalt pavement with semi-rigid base.
temperature variations in different seasons can be simplified to the
single effective temperature according to the equivalent rutting
wherein MAAT av erage is the designed annual average temperature,
depth generated in one year. It is to say, the rutting of asphalt
°C; K a is subject to the reliability level determined by the researcher
pavement generated at this single temperature condition is equiv-
based on importance of projects; rMAAT is the standard deviation of
alent to that generated at the complex temperature conditions in
the annual average temperature, °C.
different seasons. The effective rutting temperature is defined in
In this paper, the climate data collected in Nanjing City was
Eq. (15).
used, and the annual average temperature is set to 14.9 °C, the
T eff ¼ 30:8  0:12Z cr þ 0:92MAAT design ð15Þ standard deviation 0.3929 °C and the reliability K a = 2.327. The
wherein T eff is the effective rutting temperature, °C; Z cr are the crit- effective rutting temperature at different depths can thus be calcu-
lated, as shown in Table 2, and the FEM input material parameters
ical depth of the calculating layer, mm; MAAT design is the design tem-
of asphalt mixture can be determined according to the tempera-
perature, °C.
ture distribution.
The design temperature, MAAT design , can be calculated by the fol-
For the finite element model sizes, Li [37] analyzed the influ-
lowing Eq. (16):
ences of width, unit type, model depth and grid size on the simu-
MAAT design ¼ MAAT av erage þ K a rMAAT ð16Þ lation accuracy and efficiency, thereby identified the appropriate
 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507
Table 2
The effective rutting temperatures at different depths.
Layers Sub-layer Layer depth/cm Effective rutting temperature/°C
SMA13 1 1 44.1
(4 cm) 2 3 41.7
AC-20 3 5 39.3
(6 cm) 4 7 36.9
5 9 34.5
AC-25 6 11 32.1
(8 cm) 7 13 29.7
8 15 27.3
9 17 24.9
rutting simulation model. According to Li’s findings, the horizontal
width of rutting simulation model is finalized as 4.0 m. The thick-
ness of asphalt layer and semi-rigid base are depend upon the
actual pavement structure. Each of the asphalt layers is divided
into multiple sub-layer with a thickness of 1 cm while the each
base is divided into multiple sub-layer with a thickness of 2 cm.
The Subgrade is divided into two parts, which are the subgrade
above 1 m and subgrade below 1 m. The subgrade above 1 m is
regarded as finite element model while the subgrade below 1 m
is regarded as infinite element model. CPE8R plane-strain element
is used for surface course of asphalt mixture with semi-rigid base
and subgrade with the depth above 1.0 m, and CINPE5R finite ele-
ment for subgrade with the depth below 1.0 m. To improve the
simulation accuracy, the grid under the traffic loads is refined to
smaller size.
Given the symmetry features of pavement structure and traffic
loading, 1/2 model was selected for analysis. The right side of the
model is set to U1 = 0 in the horizontal direction, and U1 = 0 for
symmetrical boundary condition. The actual subgrade is infinite
in depth, but we can only built the subgrade model with a finite
depth in the general FEM simulation, which results in the inaccu-
rate mechanical responses. Some attempts were made to extend
the subgrade model depth to more than 10 m in general FEM sim-
ulations for more accurate analysis, but the problem still exists. In
this case, a special element type, infinite element, is provided in
ABAQUS [38]. The infinite element is an extended of finite element,
with geometry tends to infinity unit to solve the problem of infinite
domain, and it has been successfully applied in the rutting simula-
tions [39]. So, the infinite element is applied in this paper to model
the subgrade, and in this case no boundary condition is needed.
The finalized geometric model is shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8. Geometric model of asphalt pavement structure.
501
3.2. Load model and loading repetitions
In general pavement design and mechanics analysis, the wheel
load is usually simplified to circular and vertically uniform load.
However, Huang [40] indicated that the actual contact shape
between vehicle tire and road surface generally consists of one
rectangular and two semicircles, as shown in Fig. 9, and the contact
shape is better to simplify as the equivalent rectangular. In this
paper, the traffic standard axle load (100 kN) is considered as a
single-axle and double-rectangle load with vertically uniform pres-
sure of 0.707 MPa, and the center distance between the two equiv-
alent rectangles is 3 ⁄ 10.65 cm.
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
0 F
L ¼ ¼ 261 mm ð17Þ
0:5227p
wherein F is the single wheel load of 25 kN; p is the tire pressure of
0.707 MPa. So, the length of the equivalent rectangle
L ¼ 0:8712L0 ¼ 227 mm, and the width B ¼ 0:6L0 ¼ 156 mm.
Nowadays, the heavy load is increasingly serious on highways,
and changes of vehicle axle load will inevitably lead to changes
of contact pressure and area between tire and pavement.
Researches show that inflation pressure and load of tire have an
equivalent effect on average contact pressure between tire and
road surface. As inflation pressure of tire increases, its contact area
to road surface decreases, and the average contact pressure will
notably increase, which is very harmful to asphalt pavement. How-
ever, little change will be found with the width of tire in contact
with road surface when load is assumed to even distribution to
rectangle area. So it can be regarded that tire pressure, tire contact
area and contact length will increase accordingly as axle load
increases. The test proved that the relation between axle load
and contact tire pressure can be expressed in the following equa-
tions [41].
 0:65
pi Pi
¼ ð18Þ
0:7 100
Pi
A ¼ 250 ð19Þ
pi
wherein Pi is axle load, kN; pi is tire contact pressure, MPa; A is the
contact area, mm2.
According to Eqs. (18) and (19) and Fig. 9, the equivalent rectan-
gle width and length could be calculated for different axle loads, as
shown in Table 3.
The standard axle load is 100 kN in China, and the accumulated
load repetitions are set to 20 million within the bidirectional four-
lane asphalt pavement designed life. Because of the transverse dis-
tribution of vehicles on different lanes, the wheel track can cover
only partial lane width when a vehicle passes. Liu and Sun [42] rec-
ommended wheel track transverse distribution coefficients of bidi-
rectional four-lane asphalt pavement to be 0.20–0.27, so the
average value of 0.235 is adopted for this study and the actual
Fig. 9. Simplified load model.
502 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507

Table 3
The equivalent rectangle width and length for different axle loads.

Calculation parameters Axle load/kN

100 120 140 160 180 200
Contact pressure p/MPa 0.707 0.796 0.88 0.96 1.036 1.109
Contact area A/mm2 35,361 37,688 39,773 41,667 43,436 45,086
Contact width B/mm 186 186 186 186 186 186
Contact length L/mm 192 203 214 224 234 242

accumulative load repetitions is 4.7 million. Furthermore, the
designed vehicle speed is usually 120 km/h, and the loading time
of each wheel on the pavement can be calculated as 0.00576 s
for the standard axle load. However, in the indoor RLPD tests, the
haversine loading duration is 0.1 s, therefore the actual standard
axle load repetitions should be reduced by using the reduction
coefficient of 0.0576, and the accumulated standard load repetition
should be 2.7 million in numerical simulation. For other heavy
loading condition, the accumulated standard load repetition in
numerical simulation could also be obtained according to the
methods mentioned above. It is important to note that due to the
variation of material performances, some structures may fail to
complete the whole simulation process of scheduled load repeti-
tion times.
3.3. Material model and UMAT’s input parameters
The temperature and stress responses of asphalt pavement vary
with the depth, but only three temperatures and three load levels
were used for the RLPD tests. Therefore, Bisar program was applied
to determine the equivalent stress distribution along the pavement
depth, and the effective rutting temperatures were calculated. The
material parameters were obtained by nonlinear regression at the
test temperature and test load condition, and the relationships
between each parameters and test temperature and load were
established. Then, the material parameters of asphalt mixture were
determined by using the interpolation method based on the aver-
age value of sub-layers’ equivalent stress and effective rutting tem-
perature, as shown in Tables 4–9.
4. Simulation results and discussions
4.1. Rutting development of asphalt pavement under different load
conditions
Under different axle load conditions, the rutting development
laws of asphalt pavement are shown in Fig. 10. Fig. 10 shows that
the asphalt pavement rutting depth increases with the loading rep-
etitions under all the axle loading conditions, and the pavement
subjected the heavier axle load obviously has the bigger rutting
depth. For each axle loading condition, five adjacent data points
(two points forward and two points backward from the specific
loading repetition) were taken from every loading repetition at
the equal intervals. Then, a cubic spline function was applied to
nonlinearly regress the relationship between rutting depths and
loading repetition. By taking the derivatives of these cubic spline
functions, the rutting development rate could be obtained. The
cubic spline function was used because it could guarantee first
and second derivatives, which means that the development rate
of rut and the acceleration of rutting development are continuous
and smooth at a specific loading repetition. For each data point
selected, the rutting development rate could be obtained by
repeating the above procedure. Once all the rates are calculated,
the relationship between rutting development rate and loading
repetitions could be plotted, as shown in Fig. 11.
Fig. 11 shows that the rutting development rate of asphalt pave-
ment are similar to the three-stage permanent deformation char-
acteristics of asphalt mixture, that is the rutting depth firstly fast
increases with the loading repetitions with a slowdown rate, then
maybe steadily increases with a constant rate decrease, and finally
sharply increases with an accelerated rate. The faster the rutting
development is, the earlier the pavement enters into its tertiary
stage (failure stage). The heavier traffic load not only induces the
greater rutting depth of asphalt pavement, but also accelerates
the rutting development, which means the pavement may prema-
turely enter into the failure stage. At this case, the service life of
pavement may be shortened. However, there is no obvious con-
stant stage observed, especially under the heavier axle loading
conditions, and it is found that the rutting rate keeps basically con-
stant during the secondary stage. In other words, during the sec-
ondary stage, the rutting rate also decreases but the decreasing
range is very small, as illustrated in Fig. 12. Generally, the sec-
ondary stage takes account for the most periods of rutting process,
and is the considerable major part of the full rutting development
process
For keeping the good pavement service ability, the rutting
should be timely maintained to avoid the pavement entering into
the tertiary stage (failure stage) in practice. For rutting mainte-
nance of asphalt pavement, the critical rutting life is defined as
the accumulative loading repetitions corresponding to the mini-
mum rutting development rate. Table 11 shows the detailed criti-

Table 4
Materials parameters of asphalt mixture under the axle load of 100 kN.

Asphalt layers Sub-layer Elasticity parameters UMAT input parameters

Elastic modulus Poisson ratio P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
SMA13 1 600 0.25 0.166 353,176 0.5 1.43 0.3
(4 cm) 2 650 0.25 0.156 236,254 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-20 3 650 0.25 0.246 135,846 0.5 1.43 0.3
(6 cm) 4 700 0.25 0.227 195,387 0.5 1.43 0.3
5 750 0.25 0.21 299,026 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-25 6 800 0.25 0.166 495,881 0.5 1.43 0.3
(8 cm) 7 850 0.25 0.156 744,591 0.5 1.43 0.3
8 900 0.25 0.146 1,063,870 0.5 1.43 0.3
9 1000 0.25 0.137 1,508,493 0.5 1.43 0.3
 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507 503

Table 5
Materials parameters of asphalt mixture under the axle load of 120 kN.

Asphalt layers Sub-layer Elasticity parameters UMAT input parameters

Elastic modulus Poisson ratio P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
SMA13 1 600 0.25 0.166 260,576 0.5 1.43 0.3
(4 cm) 2 650 0.25 0.156 159,498 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-20 3 650 0.25 0.246 95,351 0.5 1.43 0.3
(6 cm) 4 700 0.25 0.227 139,203 0.5 1.43 0.3
5 750 0.25 0.210 214,908 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-25 6 800 0.25 0.166 350,898 0.5 1.43 0.3
(8 cm) 7 850 0.25 0.156 530,899 0.5 1.43 0.3
8 900 0.25 0.146 782,693 0.5 1.43 0.3
9 1000 0.25 0.137 1,093,451 0.5 1.43 0.3

Table 6
Materials parameters of asphalt mixture under the axle load of 140 kN.

Asphalt layers Sub-layer Elasticity parameters UMAT input parameters

Elastic modulus Poisson ratio P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
SMA13 1 600 0.25 0.166 197,914 0.5 1.43 0.3
(4 cm) 2 650 0.25 0.156 119,913 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-20 3 650 0.25 0.246 72,495 0.5 1.43 0.3
(6 cm) 4 700 0.25 0.227 106,498 0.5 1.43 0.3
5 750 0.25 0.210 164,677 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-25 6 800 0.25 0.166 275,080 0.5 1.43 0.3
(8 cm) 7 850 0.25 0.156 417,036 0.5 1.43 0.3
8 900 0.25 0.146 613,631 0.5 1.43 0.3
9 1000 0.25 0.137 860,214 0.5 1.43 0.3

Table 7
Materials parameters of asphalt mixture under the axle load of 160 kN.

Asphalt layer Sub-layer Elasticity parameters UMAT input parameters

Elastic modulus Poisson ratio P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
SMA13 1 600 0.25 0.166 150,320 0.5 1.43 0.3
(4 cm) 2 650 0.25 0.156 93,073 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-20 3 650 0.25 0.246 57,550 0.5 1.43 0.3
(6 cm) 4 700 0.25 0.227 83,987 0.5 1.43 0.3
5 750 0.25 0.210 130,079 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-25 6 800 0.25 0.166 223,218 0.5 1.43 0.3
(8 cm) 7 850 0.25 0.156 339,196 0.5 1.43 0.3
8 900 0.25 0.146 498,540 0.5 1.43 0.3
9 1000 0.25 0.137 696,323 0.5 1.43 0.3

Table 8
Materials parameters of asphalt mixture under the axle load of 180 kN.

Asphalt layers Sub-layer Elasticity parameters UMAT input parameters

Elastic modulus Poisson ratio P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
SMA13 1 600 0.25 0.166 121,307 0.5 1.43 0.3
(4 cm) 2 650 0.25 0.156 74,587 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-20 3 650 0.25 0.246 46,783 0.5 1.43 0.3
(6 cm) 4 700 0.25 0.227 68,681 0.5 1.43 0.3
5 750 0.25 0.210 105,976 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-25 6 800 0.25 0.166 186,267 0.5 1.43 0.3
(8 cm) 7 850 0.25 0.156 282,102 0.5 1.43 0.3
8 900 0.25 0.146 414,327 0.5 1.43 0.3
9 1000 0.25 0.137 580,581 0.5 1.43 0.3

cal rutting life under different axle loading conditions. It is found
that the critical life under the standard axle load (100 kN) is about
1.1 million for rutting maintenance of asphalt pavement with the
simulated design life of 2.7 million. The heavier axle load induces
the greater rutting depth and accelerates the rutting development
of asphalt pavement, and hence shorten the critical life for rutting
maintenance. With the axle loads increasing by 20% sequence, the
critical rutting life will shortened by 35.8%, 50.4%, 63.8%, 71.6%, and
76.6%, respectively. For the heaviest axle load in this simulation
(200 kN), the critical rutting life is significantly reduced, which is
only about 0.26 million and less than 10% of the simulated design
life Table 10.
504 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507

Table 9
Materials parameters of asphalt mixture under the axle load of 200 kN.

Asphalt layer Sub-layer Elasticity parameters UMAT input parameters

Elastic modulus Poisson ratio P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
SMA13 1 600 0.25 0.166 99,357 0.5 1.43 0.3
(4 cm) 2 650 0.25 0.156 61,380 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-20 3 650 0.25 0.246 38,998 0.5 1.43 0.3
(6 cm) 4 700 0.25 0.227 56,955 0.5 1.43 0.3
5 750 0.25 0.210 88,088 0.5 1.43 0.3
AC-25 6 800 0.25 0.166 158,247 0.5 1.43 0.3
(8 cm) 7 850 0.25 0.156 239,037 0.5 1.43 0.3
8 900 0.25 0.146 352,952 0.5 1.43 0.3
9 1000 0.25 0.137 493,183 0.5 1.43 0.3

The semi-rigid base and subgrade materials could be approximately regarded as linear elastic materials in rutting simulation [40]. Therefore, linear elastic model was used for
semi-rigid base and subgrade materials in the numerical model, as shown in Table 10.

2.5

2.0
Rutting depth/cm

1.5

100kN
1.0 120kN
140kN
160kN
0.5 180kN
200kN

0.0
5 6 6 6 6 Fig. 12. Illustration of relationship between rutting rates and loading repetitions.
0.0 5.0x10 1.0x10 1.5x10 2.0x10 2.5x10
Loading repetitions
Table 10
Fig. 10. Asphalt pavement rutting depth with loading repetitions. Materials parameters of semi-rigid base and subgrade material.

Material Elastic modulus/MPa Poisson ratio

2.0 Cement stabilized macadam 2500 0.2

Lime-fly ash stabilized soil 600 0.3
Subgrade soil 40 0.35
Rutting rate (10-5cm/repetition)

1.5
Table 11
100kN Critical life for rutting maintenance of asphalt pavement under different axle loads
120kN
1.0 Axle load/kN Critical rutting life Simulated design life
140kN
160kN 100 1,102,400 2,700,000
180kN 120 707,691
200kN 140 546,772
0.5 160 398,786
180 313,368
200 257,554

0 5 10 15 20
Loading repetitions (105) where RD is the rutting depth; P is the axle load; N is the loading
repetition; a1–a6 are regression parameters, as shown in Table 12.
Fig. 11. Asphalt pavement rutting rates with loading repetitions. Rewrite Eq. (20) to Eq. (21):

n h
a io1
4.2. Damage property during the rutting process different load RD ¼ a1  P a2  Na3 1  1  1  N=a4 Pa5 6 ð21Þ
conditions
The damage evolution factor, D, during the rutting development
Take rutting depth as the dependent variable, and the axle load of asphalt pavement can be obtained, as expressed in Eq. (22):
and loading repetition as the independent variables, a relationship
among them was established by the nonlinear regression. The
0:5
D ¼ 1  1  N=a4 Pa5 ð22Þ
regressed expression is shown in Eq. (20):
 a6 Substitute the relative parameter values into Eq. (22), the dam-
N
RD ¼ a1  Pa2  Na3  1 ð20Þ age evolution factor could be calculated and the relationship
a4 P a5 between damage evolution factor among axle load and loading
 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507 505

Table 12
Fitting parameters under different axle loads.

Fitting parameter Axle load/kN

100 120 140 160 180 200
a1 0.00003 0.00003 0.00003 0.00003 0.00003 0.00003
a2 1.479 1.478 1.472 1.459 1.442 1.428
a3 0.240 0.240 0.242 0.244 0.248 0.249
a4 4.18E+12 4.02E+12 3.64E+12 2.36E+12 1.80E+12 1.16E+12
a5 3.00 2.97 2.91 2.81 2.741 2.641
a6 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
R2 98.98% 98.98% 98.98% 98.98% 98.98% 98.98%
Standard deviation 7.1e6 8.9e6 8.6e6. 1.2e5 1.2e5 1.3e5

repetitions could be obtained, as shown in Fig. 13. The damage fac-
tors corresponding to the critical rutting life were also determined
under different axle loads respectively, as shown in Table 13.
It can be seen that the damage evolutions of asphalt pavement
under different axle loads are similar, which increase with the
loading repetitions, and the asphalt pavement subjected to the
heavier axle load damages more. The damage factor value of
asphalt pavement corresponding to rutting critical life are basically
consistent, varying from 0.14 to 0.15, which means before load
repetition reaches the critical rutting life, the damage values are
a bit small, and can be approximatively considered as a linear dam-
age. Once load repetition reaches the critical rutting life, damage
values become greater with a trend of non-linear fast development.
The heavier axle loads, the greater the damage of pavement and
the faster the damage development. The faster damage evaluation
is the inducement of accelerating failure of pavement rutting. Sub-
jected to the heavier axle loads, the pavement may prematurely
enter into the failure stage with the shortened service life.
China, the deflection is taken as the asphalt pavement design
index, and the principle of deflection equivalence is followed to
conduct the axle load conversion. The deflection is a evaluation
index of carrying capacity of pavement structure, but not the dura-
bility of asphalt pavement. Given the increase of road traffic vol-
ume in China, the heavy load and overload issues remain serious
and cause the most serious diseases of rutting of asphalt pavement.
Therefore, it is necessary to establish axle load conversion method
based on the principle of rut equivalence so as to fully consider the
influence of heavy load on asphalt pavement from the perspective
of rutting.
Based on the previously simulation of asphalt pavement rutting
under heavy load, the relationship between the maximum rutting
depth and axle load and axle loading repetitions was analyzed, and
a regression analysis is conducted to get the expression in Eq. (23):
 0:5
N
RD ¼ 3  105 P1:46 N0:244 1  R2 ¼ 90:2%
2:86  1012 P2:815
ð23Þ

4.3. Axle load conversion index based on rut equivalence For the pavement design, the rutting should not enter into the
failure stage, so only the rutting development stage before failure
There is a variety of vehicles actually acting on road, and the should be covered. At this case, Eq. (23) was converted to the fol-
axle loads of vehicles are quite different. For the pavement design, lowing equation before the failure stage:
the axle load conversion should be performed for the various vehi- RD ¼ e10:6 N0:25 P1:49 R2 ¼ 89:5% ð24Þ
cle axle load to the standard axle load based on some equivalence
principles, and the various accumulative repetitions of different It can be concluded that, greater axle loads need fewer loading
axle loads are equivalent to the accumulative repetitions of stan- repetitions to achieve the same rutting depth, and vice versa.
dard axle loads within the designed pavement life. For instance, Assume axle load P1 acts N1 times on the pavement structure to
if deflection is set as the pavement design index, the principle of achieve rutting depth RD1; axle load P2 acts N2 times on the pave-
deflection equivalence should be followed. If the tensile stress is ment structure to achieve rutting depth RD2. According to the
set as the pavement design index, the principle of tensile stress principle of rut equivalence, the two depths should be identical,
equivalence should be followed. If rutting is used as the pavement and the axle load conversion equation could be expressed in the
design index, the principle of rut equivalence should be taken. In following Eq. (25).
 1:49  5:97
N1 P1 0:25 P1
¼ ¼ ð25Þ
1.0 N2 P2 P2
In other words, the axle load conversion index based on the
0.8 principle of rut equivalence is 5.97. Because 100 kN is taken as
the standard axle load, the axle load conversion equation could
Damage factor

be expressed as follows:
0.6
 5:97
N100 Pi
100kN ¼ ð26Þ
0.4
N Pi 100
120kN
140kN However, Eq. (26) applies only to vehicles with single rear axle
160kN
0.2 and double wheels; as to vehicles with multiple rear axle and mul-
180kN
200kN tiple wheels, axle number and wheel-set correction coefficient [40]
should also be considered during the conversion, as expressed in
0.0 Eq. (27).
0 1000000 2000000 3000000
 5:97
Loading repetitions N100 Pi
¼ C1C2 ð27Þ
N Pi 100
Fig. 13. Damage evolutions of asphalt pavement under different axle loads.
506 J. Zhang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 140 (2017) 496–507
Table 13
Damage factor corresponding to critical rutting life for asphalt pavement under different axle loads.
Axle load/kN 100
Critical life for rutting maintenance 1,102,400
Damage factor 0.1419
wherein C1 is axle number correction coefficient; C2 is wheel-set
correction coefficient.
Moreover, transverse distribution of axle loads should be taken
into account according to the actually observed traffic distribution
features because the wheel load transverse distribution can cause
lateral uplift of asphalt mixture, and the axle loads at both sides
of the rutting can counteract rutting depth. The effects of wheel-
set coefficient, axle number coefficient and transverse distribution
of vehicles need the further study.
5. Conclusions
The viscoelastic-damage constitutive model was selected to
describe the three-stage permanent deformation property of
asphalt mixture, and UMAT (User-defined Material) subroutine in
ABAQUS was successfully developed and applied to simulate the
three-stage rutting behavior of a typical asphalt pavement with
semi-rigid base under different traffic loads. The main conclusions
are given as follows.
(1) Rutting development of asphalt pavement with semi-rigid
base is similar to three-stage permanent deformation behav-
ior of asphalt mixture, but there isn’t the obvious constant
stage. However, within a certain range of load repetitions,
the rutting development rate is basically constant; the sec-
ondary stage is an important period for rutting development,
and it accounts for the most part of the full rutting develop-
ment progress.
(2) Asphalt pavement rutting increases as axle loads increase.
The faster the rutting development is, the earlier the pave-
ment enters its failure stage. The heavier traffic load not only
induces the greater rutting depth of asphalt pavement, but
also accelerates the rutting development, and hence short-
ens the critical life for rutting maintenance, which is defined
as the accumulative loading repetitions corresponding to the
minimum rutting development rate.
(3) The heavier axle loads induce the greater damage and the
faster damage evolution to asphalt pavement, but the dam-
age factors corresponding to critical life are basically the
same, varying from 0.14 to 0.15. Before load repetition
reaches the critical life, damage values are smaller and can
be taken as a linear damage. Once load repetition reaches
the critical rutting life, damage values become greater with
a trend of non-linear fast development.
(4) The rut equivalence principle was applied to study the axle
load conversion index for asphalt pavement with semi-
rigid base, and the axle load conversion index is determined
as 5.97. However, the effects of wheel-set coefficient, axle
number coefficient and transverse distribution need further
study.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (Nos. 51378073 and 51408043), the Department of
Science & Technology of Shaanxi Province (Nos. 2016KJXX-69 and
2016ZDJC-24), the Special Fund for Basic Scientific Research of
120 140 160 180 200
707,691 546,772 398,786 313,368 257,554
0.1418 0.1422 0.1420 0.1424 0.1427
Central College of Chang’an University (Nos. 310821153502 and
310821173501), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Cen-
tral Universities of Hohai University (No. 2015B17014). The
authors gratefully acknowledge their financial support.
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