Effect of Bituminous Pavement Structures on the Rolling Resistance
Résumé
For environmental reasons, the energy consumption of road traffic is an overwhelming question and so is the subsequent quantification of the power dissipation of a vehicle-road system. Among several sources of dissipation occurring at different levels of this system (aerodynamic forces, internal friction in the engine, etc), the present paper focuses on the power dissipation induced by the pavement itself, and more specifically by its constitutive behavior. As a matter of fact, the type of pavement (bituminous or rigid) is sometimes evoked as a factor that might affect the power dissipation. To the contrary of non-dissipative elastic materials which are preponderant in rigid pavements, the viscoelastic behavior of bituminous mixes indeed leads to power dissipation when solicited by a moving load. This raises the question of whether the power dissipation caused by asphalt pavements is significant or not. To address this issue, we quantify here, from a theoretical viewpoint, the impact of asphalt pavements on the structure-induced rolling resistance (RR). Texture effects are not accounted here. The power dissipation is first computed using the mechanical response of pavements under moving loads. It is then converted into a rolling resistance force. Both these quantities are quantified by applying the developed method to a typical thick asphalt pavement. Furthermore, the influence of temperature on the structure-induced RR is analyzed. Under the considered assumptions, it is shown that the mechanical behavior of asphalt pavements leads to a negligible contribution to the RR.
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