The Beam on Elastic Foundation (BOEF) test has been in use for approximately 40-years for the evaluation of asphalt materials, modifiers, fabrics, grids and composite materials. However, little progress has been made to the standardization of test features with individual laboratories developing in-house methods of testing and analysis. A significant exercise has been conducted to evaluate the BOEF test and data is reported for two reinforcing materials used as an interlayer and these are compared to a controlmaterial. Testing made extensive use of computer data logging and digital video camera records for capturing crack and displacement data. The volume of data collected is considerably more than that obtained in previous studies allowing the deduction of rates of cracking before and after a sharp crack has reached the grid/fabric location. The additional data collection enables the definition of rates of crack growth during different stages in the testing. The effect of reinforcement type was observed to significantly affect the rate of crack propagation during the later stages of the test. The improved data collection scheme results in more detailed information which may assist with modeling the behavior in terms of defining fracture properties of the materials being considered.
Abstract