Damage detection into road pavements through acoustic signature analysis: First results

Efficient civil infrastructure management strictly depends on Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). Several studies have been conducted on the SHM of civil engineering constructions through the application of a large number of methods, which widely differ based on theory applied and technology used. The aim of this work is to describe the preliminary results of a new acoustic method for road pavement SHM. The proposed method is based on the idea of monitoring the time behaviour of the spectral content of acoustic signals recorded from road pavements under vehicular traffic. The spectral content of the recorded signals is considered as the acoustic signature of the road pavement under investigation. It provides information about the structural health condition of the pavement. Preliminary results were obtained considering asphalt concrete slabs. They show a correlation between the health conditions of the slabs (which were expressly damaged in different ways) and their acoustic signatures (recorded acoustic signals). Based on these preliminary results, further in situ measurements and analyses on road pavements will be carried out and different structural health conditions will be considered. Results can benefit both practitioners and researchers.