Abstract
The fatigue performance of the asphalt mixture was the main focus of this study, with five typical factors-phase angle, cumulative dissipated energy, failure strain, failure stiffness modulus, and strain rate-identified as potential design indexes. The effect of asphalt content on the parameters under different gradation and stress ratios was tested. It was observed that the selected parameters exhibited varying levels of sensitivity and relevance to the fatigue behavior of asphalt mixtures under cyclic loads. By comparison, the strain rate proved sensitive to the asphalt content and independent of the other parameters, namely aggregate gradations and stress ratio, thus establishing the strain rate as a critical design index based on fatigue performance. On this basis, a design method based on the fatigue performance for the asphalt mixtures is herein proposed. It was confirmed that the asphalt mixture formulated using the proposed method exhibited enhanced fatigue endurance compared to those designed using the conventional method.