Non-contact excitation of fundamental resonance frequencies of an asphalt concrete specimen

Impact hammer and non-contact speaker excitation were applied to an asphalt concrete, a PVC-U and a concrete specimen to measure the fundamental longitudinal resonance frequency at different strain levels. The impact and the noncontact excitation methods resulted in similar resonance frequencies for the undamaged asphalt concrete and for the PVC-U specimen. However, the two excitation approaches gave different results for the concrete specimen, which was shown to have a nonlinear response to increasing strain levels. A reduction and a following recovery of the resonance frequency of the asphalt concrete were shown after the specimen was exposed to a small amount of damage. However, no fast nonlinear dynamics were observed for the asphalt concrete through the speaker measurements.