Accelerated Laboratory Testing for Reflective Cracking

One of the most used methods of rehabilitation of road structures is the laying of a protective asphalt layer over a degraded concrete. The main problem of this solution is the reflective cracking, more precisely the transmission of the existing cracks in the lower layer in the asphalt pavement.

The method presented in this article involves an accelerated laboratory test on specimens composed of a pre-cracked concrete slab over which an asphalt slab is glued, subjected to equivalent traffic loads. This test allows the observation of the crack propagation from the lower layer to the upper layer, until it yields, through parameters such as deformed specimen, opening and length of the crack in asphalt, but also the opening of the existing crack in concrete, relative to the number of cycles.

By relating these parameters, important conclusions can be drawn about the behavior of the composite structure at reflective cracking, being able to choose the optimal recipe of the protective asphalt layer.