Abstract: To better understand the fatigue failure characteristics of asphalt binder,the mechanic analysis approach of viscoelastic continuum damage(VECD) was adopted.And both accelerated fatigue test and traditional time sweep fatigue test were employed to study the fatigue failure behavior of both neat and modified asphalt binders under different loading conditions.Test results indicate that the maximum stored pseudo strain energy(PSE),which is based on the PSE theory and proposed as the failure definition for accelerated fatigue test of asphalt binder,is equivalent to phenomenological parameter as phase angle peak and is also consistent with the fatigue failure defined in the time sweep tests.Based on the proposed failure definition,the characteristic relationship between PSE releasing rate and fatigue life was developed and found to be independent on testing methods and loading conditions.This characteristic relationship was proposed as the unified fatigue failure criterion for asphalt binder on fatigue performance prediction.