Numerical Evaluation of the Effect of Waste Glass Cullet on Asphalt Mixtures’ Behavior

A large proportion of the national budget in many countries is spent each year on rehabilitation and reconstruction of highway and airport pavements. Low strength against dynamic loads and short working life of pavements are the most significant problems in the maintenance of highway systems. Rutting phenomenon is one of the main destructions which occur due to visco-elastic and visco-elasto-plastic behavior of asphalt mixtures at high temperatures. So far, a lot of laboratory research has been conducted to evaluate the effect of glass cullet on asphalt mixture behavior against dynamic loading of vehicles and environmental conditions. The purpose of this study was numerical evaluation of the effect of glass cullet on asphalt mixtures behavior and prediction of rutting phenomenon in them. ABAQUS software was used to achieve this goal. In order to validate the model results, wheel track test results were used. The results showed that the developed model can predict rut depth of glasphalt and asphalt mixtures very well. Also, evaluations on the model showed the high effects of glass cullet to improve the visco-elastic and visco-elasto-plastic behavior of asphalt mixtures.