An implicit finite element framework considering damage and healing effects with application to cyclic moving load on asphalt pavement

•A thermodynamically consistent constitutive model of self-healing materials is discretized implicitly.•The Newton–Raphson iterative procedure is employed to update the internal variables.•Corresponding material consistent tangent matrix is presented a program is developed with application to asphalt pavements.•A 3D finite element model of asphalt pavement is presented under high cycle vehicles movement loadings.•The effects of damage and healing process on rutting performance of asphalt pavement are studied. In this work, the effect of healing process on the damage recovery and delaying the permanent deformation in smart asphalt pavements is numerically studied. In order to analyze the effect of healing, a 3D finite element model of asphalt pavement is presented under high cycle vehicles movement loadings. To study the mechanical behavior of the pavements, a thermodynamically consistent constitutive model has been discretized implicitly and implemented into the commercial FE software ABAQUS. In this regard, the implicit time integration scheme of the constitutive equations and corresponding material consistent tangent matrix are presented. Also, the Newton–Raphson iteration procedure is employed to calculate the internal variables such as permanent deformation, damage and healing parameters at each time increment. The results show that the healing affects the lifetime and load capacity of the pavements and leads to such a reduction in damage growth rate. Furthermore, damage recovery capability is degraded with the growth of permanent deformation and damage. It is demonstrated that without considering the healing effects, the model prediction underestimates the pavement lifetime with higher damage growth rate which is not a valid observation.