Investigation of Fatigue Damage Evolution in Asphalt Mixtures Based on Energy Dissipation: Linking Nonlinear Dynamics Features to Fatigue Life

This study investigates fatigue‐damage evolution in asphalt mixtures containing reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and glass fiber using energy‐based and nonlinear time‐series analyses. Load‐controlled cyclic direct‐tension tests were conducted on five mixtures at 25°C and 1 Hz, with three specimens per mixture and a mixture‐specific load range of 0–0.5F max . Damage was quantified from normalized cumulative dissipated energy, and nonlinear descriptors were evaluated over 20%–80% of fatigue life after detrending. H‐50R showed the longest fatigue life (3349 cycles) and the lowest stable damage rate (0.307 × 10 −3 cycle −1 ). Both fiber‐modified mixtures had lower stable damage rates than H‐25R. The Lyapunov‐based local divergence metric, DFA scaling exponent, and determinism showed the strongest specimen‐level associations with fatigue life. Iterative amplitude‐adjusted Fourier transform (IAAFT) surrogate tests did not support deterministic chaos. The results show that nonlinear descriptors can complement energy‐based fatigue characterization under the present normalized load‐controlled condition.