Thermal Effect Mechanism on Composite Pavement Consisted of Asphalt Surface Overlay and Concrete Layer

Composite pavement consisted of flexible asphalt surface overlay and rigid concrete base layer has come up. Though it occupies advantages of asphalt and concrete pavements, still there are problems containing thermal cracking, rutting deformation and pothole which result from the out-sync shrinkage of temperature. Therefore, influence of temperature on the composite pavement structure has been analyzed with methods of theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. And results indicate that the thickness of asphalt layer in some sense determines the influence extent of temperature and worst case happens at the concrete joints, which means that the optimal asphalt (Here, the best choice of asphalt thickness equals 16cm) and suitable joints should be designed.