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Development of a Damage-Based Phenomenological Fatigue Model for Asphalt

Pavements

Article in Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering · August 2013

DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0000573

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 Development of a Damage-Based Phenomenological
Fatigue Model for Asphalt Pavements
Haifang Wen, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE 1; and Xiaojun Li 2

Abstract: Bottom-up fatigue cracking is one of the major distresses for asphalt pavements. Accurate prediction of fatigue cracking for
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asphalt pavement is of paramount importance for a cost-effective pavement design. A fatigue model based on mechanistic-empirical pave-
ment design is modified from an Asphalt Institute model. However, there are some controversies about the effectiveness of the mechanistic-
empirical pavement design fatigue model. The major concern exists on the use of dynamic modulus as a key parameter and there is no damage
property of asphaltic mix to predict fatigue, which is induced by damage to the material. This study developed a damage-based phenom-
enological fatigue model. The pavements at the Federal Highway Administration’s Accelerated Loading Facility (ALF) were used to test the
effectiveness of existing models, including the mechanistic-empirical pavement design fatigue model, and validity of the damage-based
fatigue model. The data used in this study included dynamic modulus, critical strain-energy density of hot-mix asphalt (HMA), tensile strain
at the bottom of HMA layer, and the fatigue life of ALF pavements. It was found that the damage-based model significantly improved the
accuracy of the prediction, when compared with the mechanistic-empirical pavement design fatigue model and other conventional models.
DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0000573. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
CE Database subject headings: Fatigue; Strain; Asphalt pavements; Damage; Cracking.
Author keywords: Fatigue; Critical strain-energy density; Dynamic modulus; Tensile strain; Fatigue model.

Introduction where εt = tensile strain at the bottom of hot-mix asphalt layer;

E = modulus of material; and k1 ; k2 ; k3 = regression coefficients.
Fatigue cracking is one of three major distresses for asphalt The first form of fatigue model in Eq. (1) assumes that the
pavement. Fatigue cracking could be either top-down cracking or fatigue life of asphalt pavement is a function of tensile strain at
bottom-up cracking. Top-down cracking is a relatively new concept. the bottom of asphalt layer, named strain model. The fatigue
However, bottom-up cracking, also known as alligator cracking, models developed by the Illinois Department of Transportation,
has been studied for decades and is the most well-known fatigue the Transport and Road Research Laboratory, and the Belgian Road
cracking for asphalt pavements. Bottom-up cracking is due to the Research Center take this form (Al-Khateeb et al. 2007). The
tension at the bottom of asphalt layer under repeated traffic loads, second form of fatigue model is based on the tensile strain at
which propagates upward and eventually appears at the surface of the bottom of asphalt layer and dynamic modulus of hot-mix
the asphalt layer. Bottom-up cracking is typically seen as intercon- asphalt (HMA). The models developed by the Asphalt Institute,
nected cracks in the wheel path of asphalt pavement. Shell, or the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) are based
Accurate prediction of fatigue cracking for asphalt pavement is on the second form of model, named E model (Al-Khateeb
of paramount importance for a cost-effective pavement design. et al. 2007).
Although numerous models exist to predict the fatigue life of asphalt The mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide (MEPDG)
pavements, they are largely based on empirical correlation in the includes an enhanced method to predict the performance of a pave-
laboratory or in the field. There are two forms of fatigue models, ment. For asphalt pavement, a fatigue life for bottom-up cracking of
namely, an asphalt pavement is predicted as follows [Applied Research
 k Associate (ARA) 2004]:
1 2
N f ¼ k1 ð1Þ
εt  k  k
1 2 1 3
N f ¼ Ck1 ð3Þ
 k  k εt E
1 2 1 3
N f ¼ k1 ð2Þ
εt E   
0.003602
k1 ¼ 1 0.000398 þ ð4Þ
1
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1 þ e11.02−3.49hac
Washington State Univ., P.O. Box 642910, Pullman, WA 99164-2910
(corresponding author). E-mail: haifang_wen@wsu.edu
2 C ¼ 10M ð5Þ
Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Washington State Univ., P.O. Box 642910, Pullman, WA 99164-2910.  
Vb
Note. This manuscript was submitted on December 12, 2011; approved M ¼ 4.84 − 0.69 ð6Þ
on July 24, 2012; published online on August 27, 2012. Discussion period Va þ Vb
open until January 1, 2014; separate discussions must be submitted for in-
dividual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Materials in Civil where N f = number of repetitions to fatigue; εt = tensile strain at a
Engineering, Vol. 25, No. 8, August 1, 2013. © ASCE, ISSN 0899- critical location; E = modulus of material; k1 , k2 , k3 = regression
1561/2013/8-1006-1012/$25.00. coefficients; C = lab to field-shift adjustment factor; hac = thickness

1006 / JOURNAL OF MATERIALS IN CIVIL ENGINEERING © ASCE / AUGUST 2013

J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 2013.25:1006-1012.

 of asphalt layer; and V a , V b = in situ air void and effective binder
content, respectively.
The accumulated fatigue damage to an asphalt pavement is based
on the number of load repetition relative to the fatigue life and cal-
culated using Miner’s rule (ARA 2004). A fatigue-cracking model is
used to predict percentage of bottom-up cracking, based on the
accumulated damage. Therefore, the fatigue model plays a critical
role in accurate prediction of fatigue life, N f , for pavement design.
The MEPDG fatigue model is based on the original Asphalt
Institute model (ARA 2004), with some modifications. However,
there are some controversies about the fatigue model in the
MEPDG. Numerous studies have been conducted to calibrate
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as illustrated in Fig. 1. When compared with dynamic modulus,
which is the modulus of a material, CSED combines both strength
and ductility of material. In other words, strength or modulus of a
material alone may not be a good indicator to fatigue performance,
as the material might be brittle and not fatigue resistant. However,
a material that is ductile might not be fatigue resistant either.
Therefore, CSED from IDT strength test combines the strength
and ductility of a material, and is proposed to be included in the
fatigue model. In a previous study, fracture energy from IDT was
used to characterize the fatigue of asphalt materials (Roque et al.
2004). The reason that IDT strength test is used to obtain the CSED
is that the stress/strain state in the IDT test simulates those at the

the bottom-up fatigue-cracking model of asphalt pavement in bottom of asphalt layer (Roque and Buttlar 1992), as illustrated in
the MEPDG (Muthadi and Kim 2008; Ker et al. 2007; Gramajo Fig. 2. Considering that HMA is an anisotropic material, selecting a
et al. 2007). The accuracy of prediction is found not to be as good test mode that simulates the field conditions will produce results
as other performance models, such as rutting or thermal cracking. that are more reliable.
Observation of the MEPDG fatigue model indicates that when two Another important factor is the thickness of the HMA layer. The
asphalt pavements have same tensile strain at the bottom of HMA Asphalt Institute model does not include HMA layer thickness.
layer, dynamic modulus of HMA controls the fatigue performance However, for pavements with the same tensile strain at the bottom
of asphalt pavements. Dynamic modulus is measured within the of HMA layer and dynamic modulus of HMA, the pavement with
linear viscoelastic range of HMA. However, fatigue occurs as a thicker HMA layer will have longer fatigue life, as it takes more
result of damage by repeated stresses by traffic loads, which is traffic repetitions for cracks to propagate through the HMA layer
in the damage domain of HMA. Currently, the fatigue model does and appear in the surface, as illustrated in Fig. 3. In Fig. 3, the pave-
not include a damage property of HMA. There is a need to assess ment structure on the left has thicker or stronger base, but thinner
current MPEDG and possibly develop a new fatigue model for HMA layer than those of the pavement structure on the right.
bottom-up fatigue cracking. Assuming that the same HMA is used, the tensile strain at the
In addition to these mechanistic-empirical models, many bottom of HMA layer could be the same for both structures,
researchers worked on advanced modeling to characterize namely, crack initiation and propagation rate. However, the pave-
asphalt—pavement fatigue. In a previous study, the viscoelasticity ment on the right will carry more traffic loads than the left one to
and continuum damage (VECD) constitutive model was success- reach the same level of cracking, due to the longer path for crack to
fully applied to characterize the fatigue behavior of asphalt appear in the surface of pavement. The MEPDG fatigue model
concrete in uniaxial tensile testing mode (Kim et al. 1997). In includes HMA layer thickness, but in the formula of k1 .
the VECD theory, pseudostrain is an essential parameter for
applying Schapery’s correspondence principle to the hysteretic
stress-strain behavior of asphalt concrete (Schapery 1984). The
use of pseudostrain essentially accounts for the viscoelasticity of
the material and allows for the separate characterization of damage
within the specimen. This approach features fundamental charac-
terization and has been demonstrated to be effective in predicting
the fatigue behavior of asphaltic mixtures in the laboratory. The
HMA fracture model developed by Roque et al. (2004) describes
discontinuous crack growth by increasing crack length. The crack
will advance if the accumulated dissipated creep-strain energy
exceeds the dissipated creep-strain energy limit of the mixture.
The dissipated creep-strain energy is obtained from the indirect
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of critical strain-energy density
tensile (IDT) test. In a previous study, the concept of dissipated
pseudostrain energy (DPSE) was used, with the DPSE being bro-
ken down into three parts to consider the change in phase angle
between load cycles, change in the phase angle within a load cycle,
and change in stiffness between load cycles (Branco et al. 2008).
However, these advanced mechanistic models are yet to be
validated with field performance. Currently, mechanistic-empirical
models are still needed to predict field fatigue performance of an
asphalt pavement. This study describes the development of a new
mechanistic-empirical fatigue model.

Development of a New Fatigue Model

Past studies have shown that critical strain-energy density (CSED)

or its equivalent from IDT strength tests correlated well with field
Fig. 2. Stress/strain state at (a) the bottom of HMA layer; (b) IDT test
fatigue performance of asphalt pavement (Roque et al. 2004; Wen
(σyy and σxx are principal stress along the y and x directions, respec-
and Kim 2002). The CSED is defined as an area under the curve of
tively, and α is the half of the angle for loading strip)
stress and horizontal tensile strain up to peak stress in the IDT test,

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J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 2013.25:1006-1012.


Fig. 3. Illustration of importance of HMA layer thickness
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Two new damage-based fatigue models are proposed to account
for fracture property, CSED in this case, and the HMA layer thick-
ness as a stand-alone parameter, as shown in Eqs. (7) and (8), as
follows:  b
1 size of 12.5 mm was mixed with different binders to produce the
Nf ¼ a ðCSEDÞd he ð7Þ
εt
 b  c
1 1
Nf ¼ a ðCSEDÞd he ð8Þ
εt E
where N f = number of repetitions to fatigue; εt = tensile strain at
critical location; E = modulus of material; CSED = critical strain-
energy density of material; a; b; c; d; e = regression coefficients;
h = thickness of asphalt layer.
Eq. (7) does not include the dynamic modulus in the existing
MEPDG fatigue model, considering that the modulus of HMA has
been accounted for in the tensile strain at the bottom of HMA layer.
In other words, for two pavement structures of the same subgrade
and base conditions, and HMA thickness, the pavement with higher
HMA modulus would have lower tensile strain at the bottom of
HMA layer. Therefore, tensile strain is a function of dynamic modu-
lus. This model is named CSED model. Eq. (8) adds the fracture
parameter of CSED and HMA thickness to the existing MEPDG
fatigue model, which is named CSED+E model in this study.
These two models, along with other fatigue models, were evalu-
ated, based on the FHWA’s accelerated loading facility (ALF) at the
Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center.
Materials, Experiment, and Instrumentation
The FHWA’s ALF at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research
Center provides a good opportunity to examine the fatigue models
under well-controlled conditions. The pavement structure consists
of HMA layers on top of crushed aggregate base over subgrade
soil. A total of 12 lanes were built with the intent to evaluate
Fig. 4. ALF pavement structures (data from Qi et al. 2008)
1008 / JOURNAL OF MATERIALS IN CIVIL ENGINEERING © ASCE / AUGUST 2013
J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 2013.25:1006-1012.
the use of modified asphalt binders. Two pavement structures were
used, namely, 100 mm HMA on 560 mm base and 150 mm HMA
on 510 mm base. The pavements were loaded by a single tire
(74 kN) with traffic wander. The test temperature for bottom-up
fatigue cracking was 19°C. Fig. 4 shows the pavement structure
layout at the ALF pavement site. Detailed description of ALF
pavements can be found elsewhere (Qi et al. 2008). The following
sections describe the experiments, instrumentation, construction
quality data, and pavement-performance results through the work
conducted by the FHWA Highway Research Center, which were
used to examine the fatigue models in this study.
Materials
Six types of asphalt binders were used at ALF, including PG70-22
as control, air blown, linearly grafted styrene-butadiene-styrene
elastomeric polymer (SBS-LG), crumb rubber-TB (CR-TB), ter-
polymer, and fiber. The same aggregates and binder content were
used. Coarse-graded diabase with a nominal maximum aggregate
mixtures. The binder content was 5.3%. Detailed description about
the HMA material used, such as aggregate gradation, could be
found elsewhere (Qi et al. 2008).
Experiments
Uniaxial Dynamic Modulus
The testing frequency and temperature for dynamic modulus were
10 Hz and 19°C, respectively, as the ALF pavements were loaded at
19°C. The specimens were prepared in a Superpave gyratory com-
pactor (180 mm in height and cored to 71.4 mm in diameter and
150 mm in height). The tests were strain controlled with a strain
level of approximately 300 microstrains. The tests were conducted
using an asphalt mixture performance tester (Kutay et al. 2008).
IDT Strength Tests
The cores were taken from the ALF site for the IDT strength tests.
The tests were conducted at constant ramp movement of 50.4 mm
per minute at 19°C. The loading rate of 50.4 mm is a standard
procedure in AASHTO T322 (AASHTO 2010). The geometry
of IDT specimens was 150 mm in diameter and 50 mm in thickness.
Four linear-variable differential transducers, two horizontal and
two vertical, were placed on the ends of IDT specimens. The spec-
imens were loaded to reach peak loads and the tests were stopped
after the loads dropped significantly.
Construction Quality
In the MEPDG model, the in situ air void and effective binder
content are needed. The construction quality data for ALF
 pavements were obtained from a previous report (Qi et al.
2008). Table 1 shows the construction quality data for the model
calibration.
Instrumentation
At the ALF pavement site, instrumentations were placed under
the HMA layer to monitor the pavement responses (Qi et al.
2008). The tensile strains at the bottom of HMA layer were
measured by the strain gauges. Horizontal and transverse strains
relative to the traffic direction were measured. It is known that
bottom-up cracking starts as longitudinal cracks in wheel path
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MEPDG fatigue model. It is seen that the dynamic moduli of
HMA are different from each other significantly. Because same
aggregates were used for all the HMA, it is believed that the differ-
ence in dynamic moduli resulted from the binders. HMA with fiber
and control PG70-22 had the highest dynamic moduli, followed by
air blown, CR-TB and SBS-LG, and terpolymer.
Tensile Strain at the Bottom of HMA Layer
Tensile strain at the bottom of HMA layer is a function of many
factors, such as modulus and thickness of HMA and base, and
modulus of subgrade. At the ALF pavement site, the thickness

and then become interconnected (Qi et al. 2008). Therefore, the
transverse strains were used in this study.
Field Performance
For fatigue cracking, cracks were manually recorded as they ap-
peared at the surface of the pavements. The percentage of the area
cracked in the loaded area was calculated (Qi et al. 2008). The
pavement sections exhibited different degree of fatigue distresses
at the end of trafficking, ranging from 0% to 100%. For the purpose
of modeling, the numbers of loads corresponding to 3% fatigue
cracking were used in this study. This is because 3% was the mini-
mum fatigue cracking for the pavement sections that exhibited dis-
tresses and more pavement sections can be included in the analysis.
The fatigue-cracking growth curves at the ALF sites did not cross
each other for different sections. Therefore, the performance rank-
ing of these sections is independent of the percentage of cracking
selected to use.
Because of the availability of field performance and material
testing, only six sections had complete data set of material proper-
ties and field performance, as shown in Table 2. These six sections
were used to study the fatigue models.
and modulus of HMA and base varied significantly. As a result,
the tensile strains for different pavement sections differed signifi-
cantly from each other, ranging from 475 to 1,524 microstrains.
CSED from IDT Strength Tests
The CSEDs were determined from the IDT strength tests for differ-
ent HMAs. Past studies have shown that CSED is an indicator to
fatigue cracking in the field. Higher CSED indicates higher fatigue
resistance. It was found that HMA with SBS-LG had the highest
CSED, followed by control PG70-22, fiber, CR-TB, terpolymer,
and air blown, as shown in Fig. 5.
Field Performance of ALF Pavements
The fatigue performance of ALF pavement varied significantly.
The control 150 mm_PG70-22 pavement showed the best perfor-
mance, in terms of number of passes needed to reach 3% fatigue
cracking, followed by 100 mm_fiber, 100 mm_SBS-LG,
150 mm_air blown, 100 mm_terpolymer, and 100 mm_crumb rub-
ber, as shown in Fig. 5.
Evaluation of the Fatigue Model

Experimental Results Various existing and proposed fatigue models were evaluated based
on the ALF pavement performance and material properties. It is
expected that for well-controlled test sections, such as ALF
Uniaxial Dynamic Modulus pavements, an effective fatigue model would be able to predict
The dynamic moduli of HMA are shown in Table 2. The dynamic or correlate well with the pavement performance. Because only
modulus from the uniaxial test is a parameter needed in the the ALF pavement performance was used in this study, the primary
purpose was to test the effectiveness of the form of model, instead
Table 1. Construction Quality Data of evaluating the accuracy of prediction by these models. The
validation of these models can only be performed when data sets
Air Effective binder
other than those of ALF are used.
Materials PG grade voids (%) content by volume (%)
Lane 4/SBS-LG 70-23 5.9 10.9
Lane 5/CR-TB 74-28 6.6 11.1 Strain Model
Lane 6/terpolymer 74-28 6.4 10.3 The strain model was evaluated, based on the tensile strain at the
Lane 7/fiber 79-28 7.2 11 bottom of HMA layer from the insrumentation. The k1 and k2
Lane 8/PG70-22 74-31 5.1 11.6
parameters were obtained from nonlinear regression. The regressed
Lane 10/air blown 73-23 7.1 9.6
strain model for ALF pavement is shown in Eq. (9)

Table 2. Summary of Experiment, Instrumentation, and Pavement-Performance Results

HMA thickness Critical strain-energy Number of passes to Transverse Dynamic modulus,
Materials (mm) density (Pa) 3% fatigue cracking (13) tensile strain MPa (14)
Lane 4/SBS-LG 100 1,495,271 160,000 970 4,467
Lane 5/CR-TB 100 865,994 60,000 1,524 4,536
Lane 6/terpolymer 100 841,847 85,000 927 3,726
Lane 7/fiber 100 985,263 225,000 540 7,864
Lane 8/PG70-22 150 974,872 420,000 475 7,847
Lane 10/air blown 150 394,186 120,000 488 6,561

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J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 2013.25:1006-1012.

 5E+05
5E+05

No of Passes to 3% Fatigue
4E+05 y = 0.8781x

Cracking (E Model)
4E+05 R² = 0.4861
3E+05
3E+05
2E+05
2E+05
1E+05
5E+04
0E+00
0E+00 1E+05 2E+05 3E+05 4E+05 5E+05
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Field No of Passes to 3% Cracking

Fig. 5. Number of passes for 3% fatigue cracking and CSED Fig. 7. Effectiveness of the E model

 1.2857
1 dynamic modulus of HMA is measured from the laboratory-
N f ¼ 8 × 108 ð9Þ
εt fabricated specimen. These two parameters can only be obtained
after the construction is completed. The regressed MEPDG model
The regressed ALF pavement performance, in terms of number for ALF pavements is shown in Eqs. (11)–(14):
of passes to 3% fatigue cracking is compared with the measured  −0.0879
1
number of passes in the field, as shown in Fig. 6. It could be seen N f ¼ Ck1 ðEÞ1.1196 ð11Þ
that, although reasonable, the data are very scattered, with an R2 of εt
0.1 and the correlation is poor for such well-controlled pavements.
  
0.003602
k1 ¼ 1 0.000398 þ ð12Þ
E Model 1 þ e11.02−3.49hac
The E model includes dynamic modulus of HMA. The dynamic
moduli of HMA and the tensile strain were used to perform the C ¼ 10M ð13Þ
nonlinear regression to determine the values of k1 , k2 , and k3 .
The regressed E model for ALF pavements is shown in Eq. (10).  
Vb
The regressed and measured fatigue lives are plotted in Fig. 7. The M ¼ 4.84 − 0.69 ð14Þ
E model improved the correlation, with an R2 of 0.48, when Va þ Vb
compared with the strain model.
As shown in Fig. 8, the MEPDG model further improved the
 −0.407
1 correlation between the measured and regressed pavement perfor-
N f ¼ 2.56 ðEÞ1.582 ð10Þ mance. It indicates that the MEPDG model is a more effec-
εt
tive fatigue model, when compared with the strain model and
where E = modulus of material (MPa). the E model. However, the effectiveness of such a model is still
questioned for such well-controlled pavements. In other words,
MEPDG Model the MEPDG model failed to rank the field fatigue performance
of some of the mixtures, as shown in Fig. 8.
A nonlinear regression was conducted to obtain the k2 and k3 val-
ues in the MEPDG fatigue model, based on the tensile strain,
dynamic modulus, HMA thickness, in situ air void, and effective CSED Model
binder content. It is noted that the air void and effective binder The tensile strain, CSED from IDT, and thickness of HMA were
content are those of in situ HMA and used to account for the used to develop the CSED model. The dynamic modulus of
material variation from production and construction, as the
5E+05
5E+05
Regressed No. of Passes to 3%

5E+05
Fatigue (MEPDG Model)

5E+05
No of Passes to 3% Cracking

4E+05
4E+05
4E+05 y = 0.9577x
4E+05
(Strain Model)

R² = 0.8728
3E+05
3E+05
3E+05 3E+05
2E+05 2E+05
2E+05 2E+05
1E+05 1E+05
5E+04 5E+04
0E+00 0E+00
0E+00 1E+05 2E+05 3E+05 4E+05 5E+05 0E+00 1E+05 2E+05 3E+05 4E+05 5E+05
Field No of Passes to 3% Cracking Field No of passes for 3% Cracking

Fig. 6. Effectiveness of the strain model Fig. 8. Effectiveness of the MEPDG model

1010 / JOURNAL OF MATERIALS IN CIVIL ENGINEERING © ASCE / AUGUST 2013

J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 2013.25:1006-1012.

 5E+05

No of Passes to 3% Cracking
HMA is not included in this model. The HMA thickness is included
as a stand-alone parameter, instead of a built-in parameter in k1 4E+05 y = 0.9899x

(CSED+E Model)
of the MEPDG model. The construction quality data, such as in R² = 0.9714
situ air void and effective binder content in the MEPDG model 3E+05
were not used in this CSED model. This is because the CSED
2E+05
of HMA were determined using field cores of HMA. The variation
of air void and effective binder content have been accounted for by 1E+05
the CSED. The developed CSED model for ALF pavements is
shown in Eq. (15): 0E+00
0E+00 1E+05 2E+05 3E+05 4E+05 5E+05
 1.758
1 Field No of Passes to 3% Cracking
N f ¼ 31020.05 ðCSEDÞ1.030 h−0.24 ð15Þ
εt Fig. 10. Effectiveness of the CSED+E model
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where N f = number of repetitions to fatigue; εt = tensile strain at

critical location; CSED = critical strain-energy density of material
(Pa); h = thickness of asphalt layer (mm).
As shown in Fig. 9, the CSED model produced very good re-
sults. The high correlation between regressed and the measured
number of passes indicates the effectivness of this model. It is also
seen that the coefficient for CSED is positive, indicating that higher
CSED of HMA results in longer fatigue life. However, it is noted
that the relationship between HMA thickness and fatigue life is
negative, which is not reasonable. It was expected that when the
values of other factors are equal, a pavement with thicker HMA
layer would be more fatigue resistant, as it takes more number
of loads for fatigue cracks to propagate through the HMA layer
(Al-Khateeb et al. 2008). Therefore, another form of fatigue model
needs to be developed.
CSED+E Model
In this model, the dynamic modulus was added to the CSED model.
The regressed CSED+E model for ALF pavements is shown in
Eq. (16):
 3.963  2.149
1 1
N f ¼ 5.43 × 1013 ðCSEDÞ1.705 h0.30 ð16Þ
εt E new fatigue models were proposed and evaluated, along with
where N f = number of repetitions to fatigue; εt = tensile strain at
critical location; E = modulus of material (MPa); CSED = critical
strain-energy density of material (Pa); h = thickness of asphalt
layer (mm).
As seen in Fig. 10, the effectiveness of the CSED+E model is as
great as the CSED model. In the CSED+E model, the relationship
between HMA layer thickness and fatigue life is positive, which
agrees with the findings of other researchers (Al-Khateeb et al.
2008). By contrast, the relationship between dynamic modulus
5E+05
5E+05
No. of Passes to 3% Cracking
and fatigue life is negative. This might indicate that tensile strain,
dynamic modulus, and HMA thickness are confounding factors
with each other. Adding/removing one factor will affect the mod-
eling of another factor.
Based on this analysis, it is believed that the CSED+E model is
an appropriate fatigue model, which has shown great effectivness
and also the reasonableness, such as effect of HMA layer thickness
on fatigue life. However, the model is based on very limited data.
The model needs to be validated with large database, such as the
long-term pavement performance (LTPP).
Summary of Findings
Bottom-up fatigue cracking is one of the major distresses for
asphalt pavement. Accurate prediction of fatigue cracking is cri-
tical to designing a cost-effective asphalt pavement. There are a
few fatigue models for the bottom-up fatigue cracking. However,
there were controversies about the effectiveness of these models.
Based on recent development of material characterization, two
the traditional fatigue models, based on the well-controlled ALF
pavements.
• Based on test results collected and analyses conducted in this
study, the following findings can be stated.
• The traditional strain-based fatigue model is found not to be an
effective fatigue model.
• Including dynamic modulus in the fatigue model moderately
improved the effectiveness of model, when compared with
the strain-based fatigue model.
• The MEPDG model further improved the effectiveness of fati-
gue prediction by accounting for HMA layer thickness and con-
struction variations.
• The CSED-based fatigue model shows great potential to be an
effective fatigue model. However, the relationship between

y = 1.0004x
4E+05 R² = 0.9942 HMA layer thickness and fatigue life is not expected.
4E+05 • Combining CSED and dynamic modulus in the fatigue model
(CSED Model)

3E+05 has shown great effectiveness, and correctly characterizes the

effect of HMA layer thickness on fatigue life. It is believed that
3E+05
the CSED+E model has great potential to be an effective fatigue
2E+05 model for bottom-up cracking.
2E+05 Further study is needed to validate the CSED+E model based on
1E+05 larger database, such as the LTPP data. In addition, the effect of
5E+04 climate and traffic loads, such as speed, needs to be accounted
0E+00 for through both dynamic modulus and CSED. The construction
0E+00 1E+05 2E+05 3E+05 4E+05 5E+05 quality data are also needed to be included in the fatigue model,
No of Passes to 3% Cracking analogous to that in the MEPDG model. This can be done by
statistical analysis of large data set of routine construction quality
Fig. 9. Effectiveness of the CSED model
data and including the default value in the model.

JOURNAL OF MATERIALS IN CIVIL ENGINEERING © ASCE / AUGUST 2013 / 1011

J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 2013.25:1006-1012.

 Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Dr. Nelson Gibson and Dr. Jack
Youtcheff of the FHWA Highway Research Center, and Dr. Emin
Kutay of Michigan State University for their support to this study.
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