effect of loading frequency and temperature on the performance of geocomposite reinforced asphalt overlays in controlling reflective cracks

Every year, huge costs are spent on the maintenance of road pavements due to premature reflective deterioration of the road surface, a large part of which is related to road surface paving. Accordingly, in order to prevent the propagation of reflective cracks in newly coated pavements, various methods have been used and researched. The results have shown that all the adopted reflective crack control methods have only delayed the propagation of this type of crack. However, some methods have caused a greater impact on the appearance of reflective cracks and reducing the intensity of these cracks, and one of the best methods is the use of geosynthetic products and interlayers. In this research, the performance of 2 different types of geocomposite (with tensile strengths of 50 and 100 kN/m) in asphalt pavements in delaying the initiation of reflective cracks compared to control samples at different temperatures and loading frequencies was investigated. Based on the studies, it was observed that the use of type I geocomposite with high tensile strength is the most effective in increasing the fatigue life and among the mentioned factors, the temperature parameter will have the most negative effect on this performance. After the temperature, in order of the type of geocomposite used in terms of tensile strength and then the loading intensity, they will have the greatest effect on the fatigue life changes (about 53,000 cycles of loading difference, between the temperature of 40 and 0 degrees Celsius) on the reinforced asphalt coatings. Based on the results of variance analysis of the fatigue life model obtained in this research, the value of R² and Adjusted R² are equal to 0.987 and 0.981, respectively, which indicates the high accuracy of the presented model.