Research on the Anti-Cracking Performance of High Viscoelastic Tar Sands

The principle of fracture energy was put forward to evaluate the anti-cracking performance of high viscoelastic tar sands. To effectively reconstruct the anti-cracking performance of high viscoelastic tar sands, a semi-circular bending test was performed to measure the maximum load and fracture energy. The test results show that when the test temperature remains constant, the maximum failure load of the specimen increases along with loading rate, while the fracture energy of the specimen decreases along with increasing loading rate. Meanwhile, when the loading rate remains constant, the maximum failure load of the specimen decreases along with increasing temperature, while the fracture energy increases along with temperature. The test device is simple and cheap, while the test specimen is easy to manufacture. Therefore, the semi-circular bending test can be used as a standard method for testing the crack resistance design of asphalt mixture. A parameter sensitivity analysis is also conducted by using the ABAQUS finite element numerical simulation method. The experiment and numerical simulation results are compared to verify whether fracture energy can be used to evaluate the anti-cracking performance of high viscoelastic tar sands.