Modelling the Viscoelastic Behavior of asphalt Concrete at the Nanoscale

Hanichet, Amel; Asroun, Aissa

Journal of Materials and Engineering Structures
Volume 9, Numéro 1, Pages 61-74
2022-03-30

Modelling The Viscoelastic Behavior Of Asphalt Concrete At The Nanoscale

Authors : Hanichet Amel . Asroun Aissa .

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanical properties “hardness H and elastic modulus E” of asphalt concrete AC at the nanoscale to get its mechanical behavior comparing to the distinct behaviors of its different phases got from experimental works. AC is generally composed of coarse aggregates that have an elastic mechanical behavior, a viscoelastic or viscoplastic binder and interface transition zone ITZ. For this; as bituminous material we have used an asphalt concrete sample which is subjected to a nanoindentation simulation test using a Berkovich indenter tip with a load of 2500 µN for 10 s of loading and 10 s of unloading. AC is supposed to be a viscoelastic material; so the Prony series are introduced and different coefficients of prony are obtained from an experimental relaxation’s master curve of AC. Finite element software ABAQUS 6.13 is used to simulate this mechanical behavior where our study is carried out at a temperature of 25°C. The results showed that hardness and young’s modulus values are closer to the aggregates phase than to the fine matrix results, in other words it seems that our asphalt concretes responds of an elastic behavior at the nanoscale.