Speaker
Description
Abstract. The integration of healing capsules into asphalt mixtures has demonstrated promising advancements in their intrinsic self-healing prop-erties. However, the efficacy of this technology still requires further inves-tigation. Rigid particle models, utilizing the discrete element method (DEM), have been adopted to simulate the creep, fracture, and viscoelastic behavior of asphalt mixtures, accounting for their irregular microstructure and particle contacts. This study utilizes the previously developed Virtu-alPM3DLab, a three-dimensional DEM framework, to numerically assess the impact of rejuvenator-modified mastic particles on the stiffness proper-ties of post-healed asphalt mixtures where the asphalt mixture has under-gone healing. Simulations consider different capsule proportions (0.30, 0.75, and 1.20 wt%) incorporated in the specimens. Numerical results re-veal that the encapsulated rejuvenator reduces the stiffness modulus of as-phalt mixtures, with this impact becoming more pronounced as the capsule amount increases due to the additional rejuvenator representation in the specimen. In addition, the phase angle remains unaffected across all numeri-cal scenarios, suggesting that the viscoelastic behavior of asphalt mixtures is not significantly impacted and indicating the suitability of capsules for pavement applications. The findings also suggest that the percentage of these healing elements can slightly surpass the traditional amounts com-monly used in laboratory settings.
