Endommagement d'un enrobé bitumineux partiellement saturé en eau ou en saumure soumis à des sollicitations cycliques de gel-dégel et mécaniques

Abstract

During winter and spring in the province of Quebec, hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement could be subjected to sever conditions over their design life. These conditions are: 1) rainfall and snowmelt, which generates the partial saturation of the HMA, 2) winter maintenance requiring the presence of de-icing salt, which acting chemically on HMA, 3) traffic, which acting mechanically on HMA, and 4) temperature changes and presence of freeze-thaw cycles (FTC) creating thermal stress and deformation (thermo-mechanical coupling) within the pavement, and pressure, within the material, generated by freezing water or brines. More specifically, the literature review of this work focuses on the study of: 1) severe conditions such as climatic, chemical and mechanical solicitations, 2) physical characteristics of HMA that affect its durability, mechanical properties (viscoelastic and fatigue) and thermomechanical properties (coefficient of thermal contraction). An experimental laboratory program was conducted to verify the influence of these severe conditions on the degradation and behavior of HMA. First, thermal testing (-18 to +23°C), including freeze-thaw cycles (FTC, -18 to +10°C) were performed on samples under dry (D) and partially saturated (PS), with water or brine, states. The samples were instrumented with an axial gauge and two thermocouples. During FTC (-18 to +10°C), sample partially saturated with water, compared to those partially saturated with brines, is subject to expansions and contractions significantly greater during formation and melting of ice. In the temperature range from +10 to +23°C, the linear coefficients of thermal contraction of partially saturated samples are quite similar, but higher than that of HMA in dry state. At such temperature range, this implies that the partially saturated HMA contracts and expands a little more than that in dry state. Secondly, the samples were subjected to mechanical testing. The complex modulus test was performed in order to evaluate the damage of samples due to FTC. The test results and rheological model 2S2P1D were used to simulate the behavior of the HMA according to the various states. Over FTC, damage is observed for all samples, but much higher for the PS sample with water. Moreover, for PS samples, a distinct behavior is observable below and above the solidification temperature of the liquid. Finally, the study of the fatigue behavior of HMA under PS, with water, and D states is performed. At +10°C and 10Hz, only slight decreases were observed for complex modulus (3%) and fatigue (ε6 = 105 vs 109μstrain) for HMA partially saturated with water. These small decreases are due to the low period of immersion of samples in water, lowers temperatures of water and test, low void content of the samples, modified bitumen and good aggregates used.

Date	11 Sept 2014
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Daniel Perraton (Supervisor) & Hervé Di Benedetto (Co-supervisor)