Development of a complex index to characterize the recovery evolution of asphalt binder after cyclic loading

Abstract Accurate quantification of recovery potential of asphalt binder is crucial to the asphalt pavement performance assessment and pavement design. A new unified complex recovery index was developed to effectively capture the asphalt recovery evolution after cyclic loading, including the modulus recovery and the fatigue resistance recovery. The recovery master curve was developed based on the rest-damage superposition principle (RDSP), which can quantify the recovery of modulus and fatigue resistance over a wide rest time range. Results indicate that the recovery process can be divided into three stages, in which the fatigue resistance recovery always lags behind the modulus recovery.