Study on fracture behaviour of basalt fibre reinforced asphalt concrete with plastic coupled cohesive model and enhanced virtual crack closure technique model

In this study, the plastic coupled cohesive model and enhanced virtual crack closure technique (VCCT) are used to investigate the fracture behaviour of the basalt fibre reinforced asphalt concrete (BFRAC). In the plastic coupled cohesive model, the separation and traction response along the cohesive zone advance ahead of a crack tip is governed by an exponential cohesive law. The double-K fracture theory is integrated into the enhanced VCCT model. It is shown that the simulated load-cracking mouth opening displacement (P-CMOD) curves from both the plastic coupled cohesive model and the enhanced VCCT model compares favourably with the measured curves from the single-edge notched beam. The parameters used in the plastic coupled cohesive model cannot directly be obtained from the standard test, and the inverse analysis method is always necessary for identifying the fracture parameters. On the contrary, the fracture parameters in the enhanced VCCT method can be directly calculated from the P-CMOD curves based on the double-K fracture theory and the finite plastic fracture theory (Hutchinson, Rice, Rosengren singular crack tip fields, abbreviated as HRR field). Meanwhile, compared with the plastic coupled cohesive model, the enhanced VCCT model coupled with the Ramberg–Osgood elasto-plastic harden model is promising for investigating the physical mechanism underlying the nonlinear fracture of BFRAC. This paper proposed two concrete and valuable models in the finite element method for simulating the fracture behaviour of the huge structure with asphalt and asphalt concrete.