Comparison of the Fatigue Characteristics of Recycled Asphalt Pavements

When the service life of asphalt pavement has expired, it can be reclaimed and reused as a percentage of new pavement. This recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) usually is exposed to years of environmental conditioning and oxidation, which stiffens the asphalt binder. As the binder stiffens, certain engineering properties change, such as dynamic modulus, and the pavement begins to experience distresses.;The asphalt mixture performance tester (AMPT) is a new performance testing machine that applies load cycles within a cell that also acts as an environmental conditioning chamber. This research focused on the using the AMPT to determine dynamic modulus and fatigue characteristics of mix designs with three RAP levels and two binder grades. Asphalt Pavement Hierarchical Analysis Toolbox -- Fatigue Program was the analysis software utilized that generated the three fatigue coefficients in the traditional fatigue equation. Kenpave, developed by Yang Huang, was used to develop strain-modulus curves so that the mix designs could be compared at a designated loading frequency and the respective dynamic modulus and strain level