The Crack Development of Bituminous Interface Reinforced with Geosynthetic

Materials

Solatiyan, Ehsan*a; Beuche, Nicolasb; Vaillancourt, Michela; Carter, Alana

a
Department of Construction Engineering, Université du Québec, École de Technologie Superieure (ÉTS)

b
Department of Architecture-Wood-Civil Engineering, Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH)

Abstract
A traditional pavement maintenance approach to deal with a deteriorated bituminous surface is to mill it
up to a specific thickness and refill it with a new hot mix overlay. However, one of the main concerns
associated with overlaying is the reflection of existing cracks due to the movement induced by the load
effects or moisture and temperature fluctuations in underlying layers or their combinations thereof. This
in turn imposes millions of dollars on road authorities to redo their maintenance and rehabilitation
measures. Up until now, no solution has yet been documented in the literature to completely address the
prevention of crack development throughout the overlay. Nevertheless, using interlayers made of
geosynthetic materials have proved its effectiveness in terms of postponing the appearance of the
reflective crack on the surface by prolonging the crack path and dissipating the energy of crack during its
propagation. In this regard, in a reinforced bituminous interface with geosynthetic materials, the crack
first propagates from its origin upward until it reaches to the interlayer. When the interlayer has higher
stiffness than its surrounding asphaltic material, the crack path diverts horizontally along the interlayer
plane until the whole energy of the crack dissipates by stretching the interlayer under the movement.
However, there is no unanimously accepted laboratory test method to capture the mechanical
improvement of the system including geosynthetics toward crack propagation phenomena. This study
was dedicated to develop a laboratory test method that not only be able to illuminate the crack resistance
effect of geosynthetics but also to differentiate the load-displacement curves among different types of
geosynthetics when using at a bituminous interface. The results led to the advent of a new test device
called Crack Widening Device (CWD) in which reproducibility and statistical variability of the outcomes
were all within the acceptable range.

Keywords: Reinforced Bituminous Interface; Geosynthetic Materials, Crack Development

Introduction
A traditional pavement maintenance approach to deal with a deteriorated bituminous surface is
to mill it up to a specific thickness and refill it with a new hot mix overlay. However, one of the
main concerns associated with overlaying is the reflection of existing cracks due to the movement
induced by the traffic loads or moisture and temperature variations in underlying layers or their
combinations thereof. This in turn imposes massive maintenance costs on road authorities to
redo their maintenance and rehabilitation measures.

Up until now, no solution has yet been documented in the literature to completely address the
prevention of crack development across the overlay. Nevertheless, using interlayers made of
geosynthetic materials have proved its effectiveness in terms of postponing the appearance of
the reflective crack on the surface by prolonging the crack path and dissipating the energy of
crack during its propagation. In this regard, in a reinforced bituminous interface with
geosynthetic materials, the crack first propagates from its origin upward until it reaches to the
interlayer. When the interlayer has higher stiffness than its surrounding asphaltic material, the
crack path diverts horizontally along the interlayer plane until the whole energy of the crack
dissipates by stretching the interlayer under the movement. To capture this mechanical
improvement from the reinforced system and apply it in mechanistic-empirical design methods,
a variety of methodologies and laboratory test devices has been developed so far to resemble
the occurrence of reflective cracking. Four-point bending test (1, 2, 3), wheel reflective cracking
(WRC) test (4, 5), Wedge splitting test method (5), direct tensile strength test (6), modified Wheel
Tracker (7), Texas Overlay Tester (8), and UGR-FACT (9) are just a few to mention. However,
because of demanding large size specimens and handling the heavy weight, manipulation and
preparation of cylindrical specimens, the complexity of the test, and less diversity on studies of
crack development in different sizes of hot mixes, the universal acceptability of these test
methods are limited in practice.

The objective of this study is to introduce a new laboratory approach requiring small-size
specimens with less specimen manipulation and less complexity of the test setup, which enables
providing reliable data from crack resistance performance of bituminous interfaces, reinforced
with different types of geosynthetics and surrounded by different sizes of hot mixes, in
mechanistic based design methods.

To meet this objective, four different geosynthetics, three types of geogrids and one type of
geotextile, with different physical and mechanical properties along with reference samples
without the interlayer were embedded in three different dense-graded hot mixes in terms of
aggregate size to evaluate the development of the force-crack width curves from the initiation of
the crack up to the failure point. This study will also address following key points:

(a) The repeatability and variability of the proposed laboratory test device;
(b) Fracture parameters that enables us to differentiate the mechanical performance of
different types of interlayers during crack development;
(c) The best location of the interlayer in terms of the surrounding aggregate size;

As for the organization of the paper, a review of the literature is presented in the first section
followed by a description of materials, specimen preparation procedure and the configuration of
the device and test setup. Then, the results and data analysis are discussed. At the end, a
summary of findings along with recommendations will be given.

1. Research Background

Many scientific proofs encourages using geosynthetic materials as an interlayer between

bituminous layers to restrict fatigue cracking and rutting and to delay the appearance of
reflective cracking (10). This rehabilitation solution not only acts as a stress relief and
reinforcement layer in the system (11) but also compared to thick overlay is much more cost-
effective (12) and sustainable since it allows lower hot mix materials as overlay, thus decreases
the level of emissions and dissipation of natural sources of materials (7). However, the degree of
effectiveness of the reinforced system depends mostly on the bounding condition provided at
the interface (13). The presence of the interlayer by itself results in a discontinuity between
consecutive layers in the pavement system that may lead to a drop in shear strength (14, 15).
Previous findings showed that geogrid compared to paving fabric kept the integrity of the system
at the interface level better by showing the higher value of coefficient of interface bounding (CIB)
(16) which stems from its meshed structure that provides more contact between its adjacent
materials. This reduced bounding in the presence of the interlayer, however, plays a barrier role
in growing the bottom-up cracking, as already proved by 4 to 5 times higher energy dissipated in
crack propagation stage (J-integral) in samples including paving fabric (17).

Furthermore, the position of the geosynthetic in the pavement system is another important
consideration that in terms of the aggregate size in contact with the interlayer, affects the
absorbed energy during stretching the geosynthetic under loading (18). In order to take
advantage of the maximum benefit from the geosynthetic, its location in the pavement structure
should be selected according to the type of the distress that is supposed to be addressed. In
terms of the reflective cracking, the minimum amount of crack propagation was observed when
the geosynthetic was located at one-third of the asphalt overlay thickness from the bottom (19,
20). In addition, in attempt to understand the effect of the geosynthetic on mechanical
performance of a multi-layer system under bending, the optimum location of the geosynthetic
was proposed in a depth where the tensile stresses resulting from bending is high (21). In a field
study, the placement of the geosynthetic near the interface of an asphalt overlay with an
underlying bituminous layer was found to be effective in limiting the crack propagation (22). The
results from a finite element modeling of the geosynthetic-asphalt overlay showed that the
minimum tensile strain required for the crack propagation over the geosynthetic obtains when
the geosynthetic placed at one-third depth of the thickness from the bottom surface (23).
However, only a few studies were performed to evaluate the mechanical performance of the
geosynthetics during crack propagation when embedded between different sizes of hot mixes.

From above mentioned review of literature, this study will first introduce a novel laboratorial
approach to differentiate the mechanical behavior of various types of geosynthetics during
reflective bottom-up cracking under displacement mode of loading and then this behavior will
be compared in two different types of interfaces composed of three hot mixes of different
maximum aggregate sizes.
2. Material and Method

To illuminate the evolution of force-crack width curve in the presence of different types of
geosynthetics placed at two different types of bituminous interfaces in terms of aggregate size
was the main objective of this study. To reach this target, bi-layer bituminous samples with and
without the interlayer were fabricated in the laboratory setting. By assuming that the friction
developed between the interlayer and the bottom bituminous layer plays an important role in
crack resistant performance of the reinforced systems, the geosynthetic was placed at two
different interfaces composed of three hot mixtures. Two major criteria were considered for the
comparison among the cases: the energy dissipated during crack development up to the failure
point (W) and initial modulus of the system against crack development (E). These parameters
were obtained from an innovative crack development device specifically designed for the
purpose of this study.

2.1 Material

In this study three types of hot mixes, normally found in Quebec (Canada) were designed
complying with Transport Quebec’s standard (LC 4202) (24): (I) a surface course mix with a
nominal maximum aggregate size of 10 mm (ESG-10); (II) a binder course mix with a nominal
maximum aggregate size of 14mm (ESG-14); and (III) a base course mix with a nominal maximum
aggregate size of 20 mm (GB-20). The mechanical specifications and the gradation curves for each
type of mix are presented in Figure 1, and Table 1.

Figure 1. Gradation curves for each type of hot mixture

Table 1. Technical specifications of hot mixes
Technical specifications of mixes

Mixture ESG-10 ESG-14 GB-20

Binder Type PG 58-28 PG 58-28 PG 58-28

Binder Content (% mass) 5.45 5.22 5.14
Mean Texture Depth (MTD) (mm)
3.6 4.4
(ASTM E965)
Water Measured 97.3 85.5 86.5
Sensitivity
Required ≥ 70 ≥ 70 ≥ 70
(LC 26-0011) (%)
After 1000 = 6.6
Rutting Measured 7.2 9.1
After 3000 = 8.2
Resistance
(After 1000 cycles) ≤ 10
(LC 26-4101) (%) Required (After 30000 cycles) ≤ 10 (After 30000 cycles) ≤ 10
(After 3000 cycles) ≤ 15

To reinforce double-layer structures, three types of reinforcement grids and one type of
geotextile or paving fabric were employed. The mechanical properties of the geogrids are shown
in Table 2. In this table GR and GB, refer to the reinforcement grids made of carbon and a mix of
glass and carbon fibers respectively, covered with bitumen on both sides while GV is a type of
geocomposite in which one side covered with bitumen but from the bottom covered with a layer
of fabric.

Table 2. Technical properties of grids (provided by the geogrid supplier)

Material / Material / Protective Elongation Mesh size
Name Abbreviated Transversal Longitudinal Layer (square
Name Strength Strength shape)(mm)
Transversal Longitudinal
(kN) (kN)
Direction Direction

Carbophalt GB Glass fibers Carbon <3% <1.5% 20

Plastic foil
G 120/200 / 120 fibers / 200
Carbophalt GR Carbon Carbon <1.5% <1.5% 20
Plastic foil
G 200/200 fibers / 200 fibers / 200
Glasphalt GV Glass fibers Glass fibers non- <3% <3% 20
GV 120/120 / 120 / 120 woven
The paving fabric (PF) was made of two essential elements: a needle-punched nonwoven fabric
saturated with asphalt cement type PG 64-34. The main mechanical properties of the paving
fabric, supplied by the company, are given in Table 3.

Table 3. Principal mechanical specification of paving fabric (PF) (supplied by the company)
Specification Test Method Unit Value
Grab tensile elongation CAN 148.1 No. 7.3 % 45–105%

Grab tensile strength CAN 148.1 No. 7.3 N 550

Mullen burst CAN 4.2 No. 11.1 kPa 1585

Bitumen retention ASTM D6140 L/m2 1.15

In general, 10 slabs of size 500 × 180 × 100 mm, 8 slabs reinforced with geosynthetics and 2 slabs
unreinforced ones, were manufactured. The specimen preparation was started first with the
production and compaction of the underlying slab (ESG 14 or GB-20) in the mold of French Roller
compactor, according to LC 26-410 (MTQ standard). Thereafter, the slab was left for 48 hours for
curing at room temperature. Then, three different procedures based on the type of the interlayer
were followed as below:

• For unreinforced structures and the reinforced ones with GR and GB reinforcement grids,
a slow-setting cationic asphalt emulsion type SS-1h, was implemented on the top surface
of the bottom slab with a syringe and the edge of a spatula. The dosage of the emulsion
was opted 180 g/m2 of residual bitumen complying with the specifications provided by
the company. Then after 3 hours setting time for the complete breakage of the emulsion
in front of a fan, for the reinforced structure the reinforcement grid was applied on the
emulsified surface with a slow movement of a gas blow torch on the bottom surface of
the reinforcement grid to sufficiently liquid the bitumen.
• For the reinforced structure with geocomposite, the same procedure as previously
described for the reinforcement grid was pursued with two main differences that the
dosage was selected 270 g/m2 and there was no delay between the application of the
 emulsion on the surface and spreading the geocomposite on the surface without using a
blowtorch.
• For the structure reinforced with paving fabric, first the asphalt cement was heated up to
the compaction temperature and then applied on the surface as much as 110 g/m2
following with placing the fabric already cut at the same dimension of the slab on the
bottom slab.

After the installation of the interlayer or settling the emulsion in unreinforced case, the specimen
preparation was continued by the compaction of the top bituminous layer (ESG-10 or ESG-14)
over the bottom slab at 135 ºC. The shape, size, and number of specimens used for each structure
are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. A view of shape, size, and dimension of specimens

2.2 Method

Using an interlayer between bituminous layers enhances the crack resistance performance of the
whole system (25). However, the quality of bonding provided at the interface plays a pivotal role
in the level of reinforcement. To quantify this effect into mechanistic based design methods, a
need to measure the level of reinforcement when the interlayer changes, is inevitable. To capture
this mechanical effect, a crack performance tester device was designed and calibrated in the lab.
This device is able to realistically simulate the loss of support from underlying layers while the
crack grows from an initial notch up to the top. It was postulated that this methodology could
result in having better vision into the fracture phenomenon in reinforced and unreinforced
structures. In the following subsection, more details are presented on configuration of the device
and test setups.

2.2.1 Crack Performance Tester Device

In search for a test method to measure the crack resistance performance of reinforced
bituminous structures and could distinguish among different types of interlayers, the crack
resistance performance device was designed which has less complexity and the time and
manipulation required for the specimen preparation is competitive with the same purpose
devices. It also simulates the crack propagation due to loss in support from bottom layers under
environmental and traffic loads. Figure 3 demonstrates a view of the device and the test setup.

Figure 3. A view of crack performance tester device

The device is made of a triangle shape base that provides a support for two sliding parts at top
and the bituminous specimen over it. The role of screw and the spring in this configuration is to
keep the sliding parts in contact with each other before the test starts. However, during the test
there should not be a resistance from the spring. The test starts with an initial compressive
contact force as much as 100 N applied at top surface via an MTS servo-hydraulic loading system,
and then sliding the movable parts under a constant rate of displacement of 2 mm/min. The
movable parts are located on an inclined surface of 45 °, which allows to have the same pace of
horizontal displacement as the vertical one. As the test starts, the movable parts slides over the
inclined surface and with the help of projected edges inserted in the notch of the specimen, the
crack gradually starts o appear at the top of the notch and propagates vertically as the movable
parts slide over the surface. The horizontal displacement was captured by an LVDT installed
horizontal in contact with the side face of the movable part. The main advantage of the device is
to have more control on temperature and rate of loading. For the sake of this project, the test
was carried out at room temperature at 20 ± 1ºC. Figure 4 illustrates a typical result obtained
from the crack performance tester device on the bituminous structure reinforced with the GR
type of the reinforcement grid surrounded by the ESG-10 and the ESG-14.

Figure 4. A typical force-displacement curve obtained from crack performance tester device on
two samples including GR reinforcement grid at the interface surrounded by ESG-10 and ESG14
3. Results and Discussion

In this section the findings from the testing program are first presented and then an analysis and
discussion on the results are given. Specifically, the force - crack width curve for bituminous
structures with and without reinforcements are evaluated. Afterwards, based on the initial
stiffness and energy dissipated by the interface during the crack development stage, the major
mechanical differences among different treated interlayers are identified.

3.1. Results and Discussion on Energy Dissipation

Fig. 5 provides a comparison of the energy dissipated during bottom-up crack propagation stage
among different types of interlayers in two different structures, i.e. ESG-10 over ESG-14 and ESG-
14 over GB-20. These results are obtained from the area limited to the force – displacement curve
up to the failure point (e.g. Fig. 4) and averaged from two replicates for each type of the interface.
As can be seen, from the type of the structure perspective, the interfaces reinforced with
different types of the reinforcement grids shows highlighted performance when accommodated
in coarse-graded mixtures. On the other hand, for the interface reinforced with the paving fabric
and also for the unreinforced structure the energy required for the crack to propagate from the
tip of the notch up to the surface is noticeable when surrounded by fine-graded mixtures.

As far as the type of the interlayer is concerned, the paving fabric showed almost 3 times
enhanced resistance in delaying the crack propagation compared with the unreinforced one.
However, in the case of the reinforcement grids, this crack resistance improvement was almost
doubled only when surrounded with coarse-graded mixtures. This could be explained by the
higher interlocking effect between the coarse aggregates in the adjacent mixture and the
apertures from the reinforcement grid that provides higher pre-tensile stresses at the interface
level and in turn higher energy required for the crack to overpass it. Another interesting point
was that, regardless of the type of the structure, the GB reinforcement grid showed remarkable
improvement in the crack resistance of the system compared with the two other ones. While the
GR and the GV types had a comparable performance in both types of the structures.
 Figure 5. Energy dissipation during bottom-up crack propagation stage in two
different double-layer structures

3.2 Results and Discussion on Crack Stiffness Evolution

In order to understand how the system including different types of interlayers reacts to the crack
development, the changes in the stiffness modulus from the initiation of the test, up until the
failure point was studied by taking the slope of the tangent on the force-displacement curve into
account. Fig. 6 & 7 demonstrates the evolution of the stiffness modulus over the crack opening
for different types of the interface in two different structures.

In the structure composed of the ESG-10 and ESG-14, higher initial modulus was observed in the
structure with the GR reinforcement grid. However, the GB reinforcement grid was able to
undergo higher displacement compared with two other reinforcement grids. Moreover, the GB
reinforcement grid kept the structural integrity of the system almost unchanged while in the GR
and the GV reinforcement grids, a hardening effect was followed by a slightly drop in the stiffness
modulus of the system when the crack width reached to 1.5 – 2 mm. On the other hand, In the
case of the system reinforced with the paving fabric, a sharp reduction in the stiffness of the
system in lower crack width was experienced. Nevertheless, the system was able to keep its
structural integrity at very large crack width by the elasticity from the combined effect of the
asphalt cement and the fabric. In addition, in unreinforced structure, although the system
showed higher crack width before failure, the stiffness modulus of the system was the lowest.

Fig. 6. Crack stiffness evolution in double layer structures composed of ESG-10 over ESG-14 reinforced with
different types of interlayer and unreinforced structure
In the structure fabricated with ESG-14 and the GB-20, as shown in Fig. 7, almost a similar trend
was traced with following differences. In the structures with the GR and the GV reinforcement
grids, the hardening effect was replaced by a significant improvement in the stiffness modulus of
the system in the crack width between 1.5-2 mm. This could be referred to the activation of the
reinforcement effect, which in the presence of the coarse aggregates occurred in these two types
of the reinforcement grid. However, in the GB grid, the stiffness modulus was smoothly reduced
from a higher initial modulus to the higher crack width. On the other hand, for the system with
paving fabric, the similar pattern as the fine-graded structure was observed. Nevertheless, the
improvement in initial stiffness modulus of the system was tangibly lower in the coarse-graded
structure. Furthermore, the unreinforced structure, unlike its corresponding fine structure,
showed a higher initial modulus. However, the crack width at the failure point 30 percent
reduced.
 Fig. 7. Crack stiffness evolution in double layer structures composed of ESG-14 over GB-20 reinforced with
different types of interlayer and unreinforced structure

4. Conclusion

In this study, an innovative laboratorial approach was developed to investigate the crack
resistance performance of double-layer bituminous structures reinforced with different types of
interlayers. To have a better insight into the effect of aggregate size used in the hot mixture on
the mechanical performance of the interlayer, three different types of hot mixtures were utilized
in terms of the nominal maximum aggregate size: ESG-10, ESG-14 and GB-20. Two mechanical
indices were considered for understanding the differences in mechanical performance compared
with the corresponding unreinforced cases: energy dissipated during bottom-up crack
propagation stage and the evolution of stiffness modulus during the crack opening. Based on the
findings from this laboratorial study, the following conclusions were acquired:

• In terms of the energy required for the crack to propagate from the bottom to up surface,
the paving fabric showed superior performance to the unreinforced one regardless of the
type of the mixture in contact with. However, only using the reinforcement grid at the
bituminous interface composed of coarse-graded mixtures resulted in almost two times
enhanced performance compared to the corresponding unreinforced case.
• Using the paving fabric at the interface led to a very slow reduction in the rate of loss in
stiffness modulus of the combined system compared to the other types of the interlayers.
• In all the reinforced structures, the initial modulus was remarkably higher than the
corresponding unreinforced cases. This benefit was of great importance when using the
 carbon made reinforcement grid (i.e. GR) at the interface. However in the case of
geocomposite made of glass fibre grid, the improvement in the initial modulus was not
tangible.
• In comparison with unreinforced structures, using the reinforcement grids type GR and
GB led to higher initial modulus and smoother loss of the stiffness modulus. In the case
of using geocomposite (i.e. GV) this improvement was only associated with the higher
displacement when applied between coarse-graded mixtures. On the other hand, the
paving fabrics showed the lowest reduction in the loss of stiffness modulus due to yielding
and significant horizontal displacement before failure under the imposed shear stresses.
• For gaining the most benefits from the reinforcement effect of the interlayers, the
performance of the reinforcement grids were distinguished while embedded between
coarse graded mixtures which indicates between a binder layer and a bituminous base
layer. Nevertheless, in the case of using the paving fabric, the higher initial modulus was
recorded while using between a surface layer and a binder layer.

It is worth mentioning that, along with the current results, more experimental works are required
to check the validity of the results in cold and hot temperatures. In addition, the evolution of
stiffness modulus of the reinforced systems can be modeled in finite-element based modeling
softwares to predict the appearance of reflective cracking more precisely in mechanistic-
empirical pavement design methods.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the TEXEL Corporation, and Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for their financial support and geosynthetic provision.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
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