Study on the Effect of HDPE Stress Absorbing Layer in Preventing Reflective Cracks

Due to the long-term effects of vehicle load and temperature, the occurrence and expansion of reflective cracks has become the most critical issue of pavement structure currently. In order to reduce the damage caused by reflective cracks on the road surface, one kind of pavement structures was adopted, in which the low-modulus HDPE modified asphalt stress absorbing layer was added between the old cement concrete pavement and the asphalt overlay. The finite element was used to establish the pavement structure model with the stress absorbing layer, and the vehicle load and temperature were applied to simulate the actual stress situation of the pavement structure. The stress analysis of the pavement structure under the effect of the two loads showed that HDPE stress absorbing layer has a better dissipative effect on the temperature stress, and the stress value of the pavement structure under the effect of vehicle loads was bigger than that under the effect of temperature, and the most reasonable thickness of HDPE stress absorbing layer to prevent reflective cracks was 2–4 cm.