Characteristics and Prediction of Permanent Deformation in HMA

Permanent deformation (rutting) in the asphalt pavement is one of the main reasons cause the pavement damage. The focus of this paper is to study the factors affecting the permanent deformation by tri-axial creep test and the permanent deformation predicting of asphalt pavement. Four popular asphalt mixtures, AC13F, AC13C, AC16 and AC20 were chosen to do the repeated load tri-axial creep test under different voids, asphalt contents, different temperature and load levels. Based on the test result, it was concluded the Flow Number (Fn) of repeated load tri-axial creep test can distinguish the rutting resistance ability of different Hot Mixed Asphalt (HMA) mixtures. Temperature and Load levels have great influence on Fn of HMA as they do for asphalt pavement. The formula used for prediction of pavement permanent deformation was gotten based on the curve between the permanent deformation and loading number under different load and temperature levels. The formula was then calibrated by ALF test data.