Toward to a viscoelastic fatigue and fracture model for asphalt binder under cyclic loading

•The crack growth characteristics of asphalt binder under cyclic loading are identified.•A mechanistic criterion is established with various loading mode and intensity.•New constitutive models are developed for fatigue and fracture performance prediction. This paper presents a viscoelastic fatigue and fracture (VEFF) modeling and its preliminary application to asphalt binder under cyclic loading. Both traditional time sweep (TS) fatigue test and linear amplitude sweep (LAS) test are performed. The failure definition is unified from the peak of fracture energy. The binder fatigue performance is dominated by its resistance to crack propagation. A mechanistic criterion paradigm is established to be independent of the strain ramping rate in LAS and strain amplitude in TS tests. The proposed model is verified by various binders, demonstrating the reasonable use of the LAS as an accelerated fatigue protocol.