Probabilistic analysis on fatigue life of rubberized asphalt concrete mixtures containing reclaimed asphalt pavement

In this paper, the fatigue life of rubberized asphalt concrete mixtures containing reclaimed asphalt pavement is investigated through probabilistic analysis. The simple traditional empirical models updated with a reliable database are employed to predict the fatigue lives of various mixtures containing crumb rubber and/or reclaimed asphalt pavement. The effects of model uncertainty and input parameter uncertainty on the fatigue life are interpreted with the probability of fatigue failure, this is defined herein as the probability that the predicted fatigue life fails to satisfy the minimum requirements of fatigue life. The probabilistic analysis of fatigue failure is estimated with a simple reliability-based approach, known as point estimate approach (PEM). Comparison study shows that the probability of fatigue failure obtained with PEM is identical with that obtained with the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS). The results indicated that the probabilistic analysis using PEM and MCS methodologies can be used for exploring the fatigue life probability effectively, requires very limited computational effort, and thus has the potential and ease as a practical tool to employ in pavement engineering. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.