Prediction of resilient modulus of frozen unbound road materials using soil-freezing characteristic curve

Abstract

The resilient modulus is a key parameter required in the mechanistic design of pavements. Experimental determination of the resilient modulus requires elaborate equipment for testing and requires trained personnel; for this reason, it is expensive. There are several models for predicting the resilient modulus for unbound road materials that take into account the influence of wetting and drying conditions. However, well-established models are not available for the prediction of the resilient modulus of these materials in a frozen state. In this paper, a semi-empirical model, which uses a soil-freezing characteristic curve as a tool, is proposed for predicting the variation of the resilient modulus with subzero temperature and the associated cryogenic suction for frozen soils. Experimental data on seven different pavement unbound materials were used to validate the proposed model. It is shown that the model can reasonably predict the resilient modulus of the investigated soils that are in a frozen state. More investigations on different types of soils would be useful to better understand the strengths and limitations of the proposed model.