Traffic Strain Analysis Provided by an FBG-Based Monitoring System

Integrating new technologies in civil engineering has gained more space, particularly in pavement engineering. By overcoming some gaps that older strategies present, such as purely visual inspection, and by transforming the roads into a structure connected to network managers that permanently transmits data, it is possible to get a better knowledge and understanding of how pavements evolve. This work presents the results of a pavement monitoring system based on optical sensors. These Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors allow collecting information about the temperature and strains that occur at the bottom of the bituminous layer, assessing the pavement response to the passage of vehicles and the influence of temperature in the measurements made. This system has proven to be very reliable in calculating the speed of vehicles and the characteristics of their axles (distance and type). In addition, the possibility of drawing their deflection basins is a crucial factor in the analysis of the vehicle loads. An automated analysis through algorithms with a comprehensive time base will allow meaningful conclusions to be drawn about the pavement’s performance in the long term, resulting in a better understanding of its behavior.