Preliminary results on a stress wave based technique for pavement inspection

This work is a first step toward the design of an inspection prototype unit aimed at ensuring the safety of roads and airport pavements by an accurate and effective detection of structural anomalies at an early grow stage. The idea consists in developing a mobile device capable to generate, detect and analyze stress surface waves while moving over the pavement surface. Surface waves propagate over a long distance and interact effectively with structural anomalies. The observation of changes in the wave propagation pattern provides a means for detecting and quantifying potential surface and subsurface defects. The main advance over conventional stress waves based techniques for pavement inspection is the employment of a non-contact transduction mechanism allowing the device to perform the inspection at highway speed. The testing apparatus should be capable to provide as a final output a colorful map of the inspected area, indicating each distress along with its extent, severity and location. Here, the idea and some preliminary numerical outcomes are presented.