Fracture Mechanics Analysis of Cracking in Asphalt Pavement Widening

In order to prevent or mitigate reflective cracking in road widening, which is always along the traveling direction up the joint of the new and existing bases resulting from their different properties, this study investigates the influence factors of crack propagation and the effect of geogird in widened asphalt pavements through extensive finite element analysis based on linear elastic fracture mechanics using the computer code ABAQUS. The results indicate that increasing surface hot-mix asphalt thickness and decreasing surface modulus could effectively mitigate the reflective cracking. The potential of reflective cracking propagation would be significantly reduced when the new and existing pavement bases have a uniform modulus. In addition, geosynthetics reinforcement could effectively reduce the degree of stress centralization and delay the reflective cracking of the widened asphalt pavements.