Metodologia simplificada de análise numérica dinâmica viscoelástica de pavimentos asfálticos

Abstract

The computational-mechanical analysis allows a more realistic modeling of pavements, which may result in a more reasonable design. However, in order to have increased accuracy in the analysis, a more adequate constitutive behavior of pavement materials must be taken into consideration, as well as dynamic effects, inertial forces from loading. This work presents a simplified methodology for viscoelastic analysis of asphalt mixtures considering the dynamic effect due to the load. The numerical analysis is done with a Finite Element Method (FEM) based software. The steps of the methodology are defined as: (i) laboratory test on hot mix asphalt in order to obtain the dynamic compliance of a HMA, (ii) interconversion from dynamic compliance to relaxation modulus (which is a more adequate input for FEM) and (iii) viscoelastic numerical analysis using FEM taking into consideration the dynamic effects of a load pulse. In order to illustrate the proposed methodology, a viscoelastic dynamic analysis example of a standard pavement is shown and compared to the traditional elastic-static analysis, which illustrates the difference between the two methods. We hope the present work can motivate the use of a more advanced analysis of asphalt pavements and that it can contribute to the viscoelastic characterization of Brazilian asphalt mixtures, resulting in more realistic pavement design parameters.