Temperature-related thermal properties of paving materials: experimental analysis and effect on thermal distribution in semi-rigid pavement

Thermal properties of paving materials are essential for estimating temperature distribution in semi-rigid pavements. Literature reported that the thermal parameters varied widely and were most independent of temperature. This paper proposed an innovative test setup to determine the thermal conductivity and diffusivity of hot mix asphalt (HMA) and cement-treated base (CTB) materials. The experimental results indicated that the thermal properties of the paving materials linearly increased with surface temperature. Field temperature monitoring in semi-rigid pavement was also conducted at different depths of HMA and CTB. The heating rate of any location inside the pavement was found approximately twice the heat release. Such obtained thermal parameters and the pavement surface temperature from field monitoring served as inputs for numerical simulations based on ANSYS programme. Using temperature-related thermal properties in the modelling exhibited higher accuracy in predicting temperature distribution in the semi-rigid pavement than those independent of temperature from the literature.