Effect of Weather Aging on Viscoelasticity and Fatigue Performance of Asphalt Mastic

The long-term effect of climate factors, such as sunlight, oxygen, and water, leads to the performance degradation of the asphalt mastic, which is the binding part in the asphalt mixture. It is not conducive to satisfy the long-term performance requirements of long-life asphalt pavement. In this study, five kinds of base asphalt mastic and styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) modified asphalt mastic were prepared with the filler-asphalt ratio of 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, and 1.4. The indoor simulated weather aging tests were carried out considering multi-factors including sunlight, oxygen, and water. The master curves of the complex shear modulus and phase angle of the asphalt mastic with different aging degrees were obtained by the frequency sweep test. The curves of fatigue damage characteristics and fatigue life were fitted based on the viscoelastic continuum damage (VECD) model. The influence of weather aging on the viscoelasticity and fatigue performance of asphalt mastic were analyzed. Results indicated that the effect of weather aging increases the elastic component and decreases the viscous component. The fatigue performance of SBS modified asphalt mastic was better than that of base asphalt mastic. As the aging degree deepens, the brittle failure characteristics of asphalt mastic with a higher filler–asphalt ratio were more obvious. The base asphalt mastic becomes more sensitive to the strain level due to weather aging, and its fatigue life increased under the low strain loading and decreased under the high strain loading. The fatigue performance of SBS modified asphalt mastic was less sensitive to the strain level. The fatigue life reduced after aging under low and high strain load. Taking the impact of weather aging on the fatigue performance into consideration, the optimal filler–asphalt ratios of the base asphalt mastic SBS modified asphalt mastic are 1.0 and 1.2, respectively.