At present, failure definition and damage characteristic curve (DCC) analysis included in the framework to assess bitumen fatigue cracking performance have an inconsistency in ranking bitumen fatigue behaviour. This study utilized two types of self-healing polymers (STP and IPA1w) to modify the neat asphalt (NA), and research four different types of bitumens: NA, STP-modified bitumen, IPA1w-modified bitumen, and styrene-butadiene-styrene modified bitumen (SBSB), to evaluate the above-mentioned framework. All bitumens were subjected to short-term and long-term aging and tested utilizing the Linear amplitude sweep (LAS) test and simplified viscoelastic-continuum-damage (S-VECD) model. The results showed that the SBSB exhibited the highest numbers of loading cycles (in long-term aging analysis) to reach failure points at 25°C, 28°C, and 31°C which were 2290, 2340, and 2510, respectively. However, this bitumen failed to exhibit the best performance in terms of DCC assessment under the same conditions, confirming the above-mentioned inconsistency. Besides, the current failure criterion could not accurately predict bitumen fatigue behaviour under certain test conditions because two R2 values were below 0.1. As a result, this study proposed a new failure definition and failure criterion to overcome these issues. The proposed failure definition agreed with the DCC analysis to rank bitumen fatigue performance, and the proposed failure criterion showed R2 values higher than 0.9. The new framework presented the modified bitumen containing 0.5% of STP as the asphalt binder with the best fatigue cracking performance, according to the selected test conditions.

Fatigue performance and self-repairing activity of asphalt binders are two properties that highly influence the fatigue cracking response of asphalt pavement. There are still numerous gaps of knowledge to fill linked with these two characteristics. For instance, current parameters fail to fully accommodate these two bitumen phenomena. This study aims to propose a new procedure to address this issue utilizing the linear amplitude sweep (LAS) test, LAS with rest period (RP) (LASH) test, and simplified viscoelastic continuum damage (S-VECD) model. This research work used four different types of asphalt binders: neat asphalt (NA), self-healing thermoplastic polyurethane (STPU)-modified bitumen (STPB), self-healing poly (dimethyl siloxane) crosslinked with urea bond (IPA1w)-modified bitumen (IPAB), and styrene–butadiene–styrene (SBS)-modified bitumen (SBSB). Before the testing process, all the materials were subjected to short-term and long-term aging. The new procedure showed a superior capacity to analyze and accommodate all bitumen fatigue performances and self-repairing activities compared to the current method. Another finding proved that asphalt binders with higher self-restoration behavior failed to show better fatigue performance. A breakthrough finding demonstrated that asphalt binder fatigue response augmented when the RP was applied at a higher damage intensity (S) value. STPBs and IPABs reached their highest increments of fatigue response, containing 1.0% of STPU and 0.5% of IPA1w, respectively. Those augmentations were 207.54% and 232.64%, respectively.