Mechanical Behavior Analysis of Asphalt Mixture in Meso-Scale Considering Locally Effective Material

Abstract Both conventional asphalt mix design and current pavement structure design method, known as macro research techniques, cannot take all micro–meso-parameters into consideration. The relationship between meso-structural information and macroscopic mechanical responses was established by using locally effective material method. First, elastic properties of asphalt mortar were obtained based on the resilient modulus test, and an appropriate moving window size was used to calculate the coarse aggregate volume fraction, which was treated as a locally homogenous distribution. Additionally, accounting for the generation of homogenous materials, a locally effective material method was implemented by a mechanical approach method for different asphalt mixtures, and then effective models for finite-element method (FEM) were established. Finally, effective models were calibrated within a small displacement domain based on the digital image correlation monitoring test, and then the FEM results illustrated the different mechanical responses, which show a more reasonable distribution than original models. In conclusion, although effective FEM model are locally equivalent materials, this approach is an effective method without lacking of the ability to figure out these meso-structural differences among various asphalt mixtures.