Investigation of temperature-dependent stiffness variation of a layer of asphalt and their possible effect on the deformation behaviour of concrete structures

摘要

In the time of increasing maintenance costs, the continuous inspection and the earliest possible damagedetection become more and more important. In order to minimize future maintenance costs, the exact evaluation ofthe condition of the structure and the exact assessment of potential damages are of essential importance.Therefore the University of Luxembourg carries out projects to investigate an efficient application of differentassessment methods taking into account praxis relevant test conditions. As a part of this project especially thechanging temperatures which influence the stiffness of the materials are analysed. As a consequence, for the conditionassessment of structures, the asphalt layer cannot only be taken into consideration as a mass applied as load on thestructure. Due to bond effects of the asphalt layer to the load carrying element its changing stiffness induced bychanging temperatures influences the stiffness of the whole structure.Within this paper this effect will be illustrated. First the load carrying behaviour and the stiffness of pre-stressedconcrete slabs realized with and without an additional asphalt layer will be investigated in a climate chamber and theresults will be compared for different temperatures.