Stress State of Asphalt Mortar Based on Meso-Scopic Finite Element Simulation and Verification

Abstract

AbstractThe composition and structure of asphalt mixture have a significant impact on its mechanical performance, and the randomly distributed coarse aggregate impose a significant impact on the stress state of asphalt mortar. However, the traditional method can only evaluate the mechanical properties of asphalt mixture from macro scopic indexes, cannot show the stress state of asphalt mortar in details. Therefore, based on digital image processing technology, a meso-finite element model of asphalt mixture is established, and the stress state of asphalt mortar is analyzed by using finite element method. The correlation between the distance from mortar to aggregate and the stress state is established. Results show that the stress of asphalt mortar basically approaches to the external applied stress or zero when the distance from aggregate surface to mortar exceeds 4 mm. The closer it is to the aggregate surface, the greater the stress of the mortar is. Under compressive conditions, asphalt mortar will be affected by tensile stress in its vertical direction, and the maximum tensile stress is about 0.2–0.25 times of the maximum compressive stress. The results of this paper have a good reference for explaining the complex stress state of asphalt mortar.