AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/AJWEP025360283
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Fatigue failure criteria of asphalt mixture under moisture influence and cyclic loading

Yu Wang1,2 Peng Wang1 Jiangsan Hu3* Xiaoming Liu1
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1 Equipment Material Technology Center, Inner Mongolia Power (Group) Co., Ltd., Inner Mongolia Electric Power Research Institute, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
2 Department of Hydraulic Engineering, College of Water Resources and Environment, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, Hubei, China
3 Department of Road Bridge and River Crossing Engineering, College of Energy and Transportation Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
Received: 5 September 2025 | Revised: 26 September 2025 | Accepted: 10 October 2025 | Published online: 10 November 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

The fatigue characteristics of asphalt mixtures in terms of permanent deformation were investigated using a triaxial repeated creep test and a small accelerated loading test. The results indicate that when the specimens in the small accelerated loading tests reach fatigue failure, the variation trend of the vertical residual resilient modulus under different test conditions is consistent with that of the residual resilient modulus at the end of the triaxial repeated creep tests. In addition, the vertical strain, displacement, and laminar base strain in the small accelerated loading test exhibit three stages, which are similar to the three stages observed in the triaxial repeated creep tests. Based on a phenomenological method, the test results of the triaxial repeated creep tests and the small accelerated loading tests can be correlated—under the same test conditions, there is a linear relationship between the fatigue lives obtained from the two types of tests. Furthermore, a temperature-equivalent curve for the fatigue life of the triaxial repeated creep tests influenced by temperature is established, thereby defining the failure criteria for the small accelerated loading test. These findings provide a scientific basis for determining the fatigue failure criteria of small accelerated loading tests and offer a new approach to studying the fatigue failure behavior of asphalt mixtures.

Keywords
Asphalt mixture
Triaxial repeated creep test
Modulus of resilience
Fatigue resistance
Environmental durability
Funding
This study was financially supported by a self-funded project of Inner Mongolia Power (Group) Co., Ltd, Inner Mongolia Power Research Institute (2024, Issue 114, 2024-ZC-2-08), and the Inner Mongolia Natural Science Foundation (2023LHMS05009).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing