Analysis of influential factors on viscoelastic deflection response of asphalt pavements

Asphalt pavement behavior can be more realistically illustrated by conducting viscoelastic analysis. In this research, viscoelastic deflection responses are calculated for a typical three layer asphalt pavement and the effects of asphalt mixture layer thickness, base thickness, base modulus, and sub grade modulus on viscoelastic deflection are evaluated. The results show that deflection decreases with the increase of the four influential factors at various loading time. Effects of base type on viscoelastic deflection decrease as asphalt mixture thickness increases. The rate of deflection increase with time becomes faster as asphalt mixture thickness increases, but becomes slower as base thickness increases. Increasing the sub grade modulus is more efficient in reducing the viscoelastic deflection than increasing the modulus of semi-rigid base.