Peridynamic modeling of early-age cracking behaviour in continuously reinforced concrete pavement

Continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) is frequently used for heavy traffic. In CRCP, early-age cracking can be caused by environmental loading freely and randomly, but only certain crack patterns can affect its long-term performance and induce distress such as punchouts. In this work, we introduce a peridynamic model that includes the time dependency of the environmental loading and material properties to investigate the early-age behaviour of CRCP and predict its cracking. The simulation results match those from field observations in terms of crack patterns, average transverse crack spacing, and crack width. We conduct parametric analyses and find the effects changing environmental conditions and design parameters have on crack patterns. An investigation of active crack control demonstrates that the model can be used to determine optimal pre-notch spacing, for specific environmental conditions, that leads to desirable crack patterns.