Several waste materials are often used in the mixt-design of asphalt concrete materials to manufacture green construction materials and among them recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) is a favorite material that can be utilized as partial replacement of natural stone aggregates. Addition of such waste and recycled materials may have a negative influence on the mechanical properties and strength or performance of asphalt pavements. In particular, resistance of asphaltic overlays made by some amounts of RAP material against cracking and crack propagation can be reduced and it is necessary to investigate possible effects of RAP addition on cracking resistance of asphalt mixtures. Passage of traffic loads from the cracked overlays and asphaltic pavements can activate all basic tensile and shear mode crack deformations (i.e., pure mode I, pure mode II and pure mode III). In addition, due to the visco-elastic nature of bitumen used in the asphalt mixture, the risk of crack propagation and failure at low temperature conditions is higher than the intermediate and high temperatures. Therefore, in this research, the influence of adding RAP material on the fracture toughness of all three basic fracture modes (namely, KIc, KIIc and KIIIc) is investigated using edge-notched disc bend (ENDB) specimens. Fracture toughness tests are conducted on hot mix asphalt (HMA) mixtures containing 0, 20 and 40 % RAP material (as replacement of natural aggregates) at five low temperatures of 0, -6, -12, -18, -24 oC. Based on the results, all fracture toughness data were decreased by increasing the temperature from -24oC to zero and increasing the RAP content from 0 to 40%. Depending on the test temperature and mixture type (HMA with or without RAP content) the KIc and KIIc values were varied from 0.5 to 1.1 MPa.m0.5. This range for KIIIc value was in the lower limit of 0.35 MPa.m0.5 and 0.75 MPa.m0.5. Some fracture indexes such as fracture toughness ratios (KIIc/KIc, KIIIc/KIc, KIIc/KIIIc, and Kopening/Kshearing-eff) and effective fracture toughness were determined and discussed for the investigated HMA mixtures at different temperatures.
