The objective of the PhD thesis « Study and modelling of the pavement reinforcement with glass fibre grid under fatigue loading » is to characterize the reinforcement role of the asphalt surface layer of a pavement subjected to fatigue loading with the glass fibre grid or « geo-grid ». The fatigue behaviour of the composite formed of asphalt mixture and geo-grid is studied in laboratory with four point bending tests (4PB) performed with sinusoidal waveform, at 10°C and 25 Hz. The tested specimens are 630 x 100 x 100 mm3 beams of two types: asphalt beams (non-reinforced) and asphalt beams reinforced with geo-grid (reinforced). A four point bending prototype device was designed to perform the fatigue tests on the big size asphalt specimens. The device respects the European Standards. The experimental results were used for modelling of the damage evolution under fatigue loading of the both types of beams. The damage laws of the materials are Bodin laws programmed in Cast3M finite element code. Two categories of models were conceived, respectively: one layer beam models and tri-layers beam models. Each category has a model of non-reinforced beam and a model of reinforced beam. Furthermore, Castro-Sanchez model was used to predict damage evolution and in particular the number of cycles to failure correspondent to the two types of beams.
