LAUSR

Abstract Since most asphalt pavement distresses are directly related to material fracture resistance, characterizing its properties has been extensively studied through laboratory testing and numerical simulation during the past decades. Semi-circular bending (SCB) test is a widely used laboratory test to determine the fracture energy of asphalt mixtures, while numerical simulation based on finite element method (FEM) and extended FEM (XFEM) has been performed to investigate the propagation of cracking development. In this study, peridynamics, a new fracture mechanics methodology that extends classical continuum mechanics to discontinuous material responses, is implemented to simulate crack propagation during the SCB testing process. The numerical peridynamics analysis results are compared with laboratory SCB results and it is found that the paths of simulated crack development match lab observations well. The arch effect resulting from the geometry of SCB samples is analyzed and the energy transformation during the cracking process is quantified. Two loading peaks are observed during the simulation from the load verse load line displacement (P–u) curves. The energy absorption in the SCB test can be further divided into four different distinctive energy transfer phases. It is anticipated that this work could promote the in-depth understanding of crack propagation for the SCB test and better evaluate fracture resistance of asphalt mixtures.