Time–temperature superposition for viscoelastic materials with application to asphalt–aggregate mixes

Abstract

This paper presents a new approach to characterisation of asphalt mixtures constitutive models, with application to pavement structures. It is well-known fact that temperature, frequency and time of loading have a great influence on the mechanical properties of bituminous mixtures. For this reason, the properties are usually presented in the frequency domain as complex numbers having real and imaginary parts. This convenient representation in terms of complex modulus and phase angle leads to the dynamic modulus master curve. The effective use of the theory of linear viscoelasticity to characterise constitutive model of asphaltic material is shown in this paper. Viscoelastic constitutive model is represented by a combination of rheological schemes, and its identification is based on both laboratory tests results and mixture composition. The temperature–frequency or temperature–time superposition principle being applied in order to produce master curves of mechanical properties is illustrated with real experimental data. Further, the process of identification of Huet–Sayegh parameters is carried out using best-fitting methods implemented in MATLAB. Fractional rheological model is used as it needs only a small number of elements to fully characterise the response of asphalt materials.