Smart road infrastructures through vibro-acoustic signature analyses

Abstract

Smart cities need “intelligent” infrastructures designed or managed bearing in mind crucial characteristics, such as sustainability, efficiency, safety, and resiliency. Several solutions can be adopted, but the key factor for the success of the solution selected is its ability of improving the management process. The objective of the study described in this paper is to develop a solution that can be used to make smarter the road pavement monitoring and maintenance. In particular, a Non-Destructive Test (NDT)-based method is presented and applied aiming at extracting crucial information about the Structural Health Status (SHS) of the monitored road pavement. Results show that the method is able to recognize the presence and the growing of induced cracks using meaningful features extracted from the vibro-acoustic signatures (acoustic signals) of the road pavement loaded by a light vehicle. The abovementioned features can be used to build innovative P-F curves able to improve the road pavement management process.