Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Continuous health monitoring of pavement systems using smart

sensing technology
Amir H. Alavi ⇑, Hassene Hasni, Nizar Lajnef, Karim Chatti
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA

h i g h l i g h t s

A self-powered sensing approach is proposed for health monitoring of pavement systems.

Damage detection performance is evaluated with numerical and experimental studies.

A new miniaturized spherical packaging system is designed for the protection of embedded sensing system.

Damage localization and quantification is investigated.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Recently, significant attention has been devoted to the utilization of new sensing technologies for pave-
Received 4 November 2015 ment maintenance and preservation systems. This study presents a new approach for the continuous
Received in revised form 9 March 2016 health monitoring of asphalt concrete pavements based on piezoelectric self-powered sensing technol-
Accepted 23 March 2016
ogy. The beauty of this technology is that the signal sensed by the piezoelectric transducers from traffic
Available online 6 April 2016
loading can be used both for empowering the self-powered sensors and damage diagnosis. Numerical and
experimental studies were carried out to evaluate the damage detection performance of the proposed
Keywords:
self-sustained sensing system. A three-dimensional finite element analysis was performed to obtain
Pavement health monitoring
Self-powered wireless sensor
the pavement responses under moving tire loading. Damage was introduced as bottom-up fatigue cracks
Fatigue cracking at the bottom of the asphalt layer. Thereafter, features extracted from the dynamic strain data for a
Damage number of sensing nodes were used to detect the damage progression. The laboratory tests were carried
out on an asphalt concrete specimen in three point bending mode. For the protection of the embedded
sensors, a new miniaturized spherical packaging system was designed and tested. Based on the results
of the numerical study, the sensing nodes located along the loading path are capable of detecting the
damage progression. Besides, the experimental study indicates that the proposed method is efficient in
detecting different damage states including crack propagation. Finally, the possibility of localizing the
damage and quantifying its severity was investigated and discussed.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Pavement health monitoring plays a key role in pavement man-
agement systems. Early repair and maintenance scheduling
increase the safe operation and in-service performance of pave-
ment. This can be achieved through an accurate and consistent
monitoring of pavement condition. In general, the existing
approaches for pavement health monitoring can be divided into
external evaluation technologies and in situ pavement sensors
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: alavi@msu.edu, ah_alavi@hotmail.com (A.H. Alavi), hasniha1
@msu.edu (H. Hasni), lajnefni@egr.msu.edu (N. Lajnef), chatti@egr.msu.edu
(K. Chatti).
[1]. The external evaluation methods have been commonly used
for the evaluation of surface distresses. Typical examples in this
context are using image analysis techniques to analyze the pave-
ment distress [2,3], or stereo-imagery for measuring pavement
deformation [4]. Besides, there are numerous nondestructive eval-
uation (NDE) methods for the assessment of assess the behavior of
pavements and other infrastructures [5–18]. The in-situ pavement
sensing methods have been the focus of many studies for the last
decades as alternatives to the traditional monitoring [19–22]. Dif-
ferent type of sensors can be used in this domain such as pressure
cell, deflectometer, strain gauge, thermocouple, moisture sensor,
fiber-optic sensors, etc [23–34]. Moreover, there are several full-
scale test studies to measure the in situ pavement responses under
traffic load [35–37].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2016.03.128
0950-0618/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
720 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736
A major limitation of the traditional wired sensors pertains to
their deployment and maintenance. More, managing huge amount
of data generated by a dense array of wired sensors is very chal-
lenging and costly [38]. To cope with these limitations, wireless
sensor networks (WSNs) are increasingly utilized as alternatives
to traditional structural engineering monitoring systems. The sig-
nificant capability of WSNs for sensing the physical state of the
structural systems has attracted considerable attention in recent
years [39–46]. WSNs are not merely monitoring systems but also
autonomous data acquisition nodes [47–49]. Dense arrays of
low-cost smart wireless sensors can offer useful data about the
structural deterioration. Such information can be efficiently used
to enhance the performance of the pavement condition monitoring
systems [38,50,51]. Recent development and applications of smart
sensors and sensing systems in infrastructural engineering can be
found in [38,52–56]. However, a significant concern for the appli-
cation of wireless sensors is about their power supply. Nearly all
of the commercially viable sensors for structural health monitoring
(SHM) require an external power source, either battery or solar
power [57]. Periodic replacement of batteries for embedded sen-
sors or use of solar power technology would be cost-prohibitive
and in some cases impractical. This issue becomes more challeng-
ing for the continuous long-term monitoring of pavement struc-
tures. Harvesting ambient energy seems to be an attractive
solution for tackling this problem [54,58–61]. Energy harvesting
devices can convert mechanical energy into electrical energy
[62]. These micro-power generators can be used and integrated
with the monitoring system. Among various self-powering energy
sources, piezoelectric transducers are proved to be one of the most
efficient choices [57–64]. For pavement health monitoring, piezo-
electric transducers can be used for the self-powering of wireless
sensors by harvesting energy from the mechanical loading experi-
enced by the pavement [64]. Recently, the authors at Michigan
State University (MSU) have developed a new class of self-
powered wireless sensors (SWS) [63–65]. The designed SWS is a
small size battery-less sensor. The prototype of this miniaturized
strain-senor is shown in Fig. 1.
This unique sensor is based on the integration of the piezoelec-
tric transducers with an array of ultra-low power floating gate
computational circuits [64]. By embedding these sensors inside
the pavement, it is possible to monitor the localized strain
statistics. The recorded information can be used for early damage
detection and future condition evaluation. Research in the previous
FHWA funded project revealed the applicability of the SWS for con-
tinuous monitoring of infrastructures [63–66]. That project was
basically focused on the manufacturing of the sensor electronics,
and design of a packaging system to withstand loading and envi-
ronmental conditions for the pavement implementation. A limited
study was done on developing a method for predicting remaining
fatigue life of pavement and generating missing data from a set
of measurements by a classical statistical technique [64]. Despite
several advantages of using SWS, there would be a considerable
loss of information. In fact, a part of the sensed information is
Interface Piezoelectric
Board Transducer
D = 12mm
Sensor
Electronics
Fig. 1. The prototype of the SWS system.
compressed as a function of cumulative time at each load level. This
drawback results in a difficulty in the interpretation of the data
generated by SWS [64]. More recently, Alavi et al. [65] proposed a
data interpretation system integrating finite element method
(FEM) and probabilistic neural network (PNN) for the detection
damage progression in gusset plates based on the SWS data.
This study presents a new system for the continuous long-term
health monitoring of pavement structures based on the SWS data.
The proposed approach uses features extracted from the cumula-
tive time strain distributions at preselected discrete levels. The
finite element model of an asphalt concrete pavement layer was
used as the representative of the real structure. The main goal
was to detect the fatigue cracking due to excessive tensile strain
at the bottom of the asphalt concrete. In order to analyze the
response of the sensing system embedded within the asphalt layer,
a series of tests were conducted on an asphalt concrete beam under
a three point bending configuration. The results indicate that the
proposed system can be efficiently used for the pavement health
monitoring.
2. The proposed pavement health monitoring system
Damage detection algorithms play a key role in the SHM sys-
tems. These algorithms are used for the analysis of raw sensor data
and subsequently for damage diagnosis [67]. The SWS-based dam-
age detection procedure proposed in this study includes three
major phases: (1) structural simulation with finite element method
(FEM) (2) generation of data and feature extraction based on the
outputs of the SWS memory cells, and (3) finding a reasonable rela-
tionship between the probability density function (PDF) parame-
ters obtained from strain distribution, and damage progression.
First, a damage scenario was defined for the given pavement struc-
ture via the FE simulations. Subsequently, the cumulative time of
occurrences at predetermined strain levels are determined for
the data acquisition points (sensors). The strain distribution in
each sensing node was used for defining damage indicators.
Besides, a major challenge in application of wireless sensors results
from the fact that damage in structures is an intrinsically local
phenomenon. Thus, sensors that are close to the damaged site
are more influenced than those remote to the damage site. The
only existing solution to effectively detect damage at an arbitrary
location in a structure is to densely distribute the sensors through-
out the structure [38]. Obviously, this is not an optimal and
economic solution. To cope with this issue, this study proposes
another strategy based on the effect of array of sensors.
2.1. Smart sensor
The new smart SWS made at MSU is capable of continuously
monitoring of strain events within the host structure. It uses only
self-generated electrical energy harvested directly from the sens-
ing signal induced by a piezoelectric transducer connected to the
pavement. This sensor can be economically attached to pavement
structures either during construction, or anytime during routine
maintenance operations. The communication between the sensor
and a service vehicle is done using Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) technology. Previous study showed that the sensor can be
read using an RFID scanner from a distance of 16 in. (406.4 mm)
[64]. For a sensing system embedded inside an asphalt specimen,
the thickness of the asphalt layer affects the accuracy of the trans-
mitted and recovered signal due to its viscoelastic properties. In
this case, the sensor and RFID scanner can communicate from a
distance of about 12 in. (304.8 mm) [64]. The convertible electrical
power levels in structures are typically less than 1 lW. Given the
strain levels observed in pavements, it is believed that the available
 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736
harvestable energy is also around 1 lW. The sensor uses novel ana-
log signal processing circuits that require less than 1 lW of power
[66]. More details about this smart sensor can be found in [64].
However, it is known that the piezoelectric transducers have
the ability to convert the mechanical applied charge to an electrical
charge using the direct piezoelectricity effect. The open source
voltage (V) generated across the piezoelectric ceramic transducer
material is given by the following equation [63]:
SYd31 h
V¼
e sors gives the locations of the critical damage areas.
where S, Y, d31, h and e, are the applied strain, Young’s modulus of
the piezoelectric material, piezoelectric constant, thickness, and the
electrical permittivity, respectively. The sensor has a series of mem-
ory cells that cumulatively store the duration of strain events, at a
preselected level discretization. If the voltage generated by the
piezoelectric transducer due to pavement loading exceeds a prese-
lected threshold, the memory cell corresponding to that threshold
will start measuring the duration of the event. At constant loading
frequency, the sensor output is the cumulative histogram of the
loading strain distribution [65]. In fact, the sensor does not directly
measure the absolute value of strain in order to estimate damage.
The rate of variation of strain distributions is related to the rate of
damage. The whole methodology is based on relative damage. A
representation of the level crossing cumulative time counting
implemented by the developed SWS can be found in [65]. It has
been shown that the sensor output can be characterized by the fol-
lowing cumulative density function (CDF) [65]:
  
a el
FðeÞ ¼ 1  erf pffiffiffi
2 r 2
where, l, r and a are mean of cumulative time distribution, stan-
dard deviation accounting for the load and frequency variability,
and total cumulative time of the applied strain. l and r of the strain
distribution can be regarded as indicators of the damage progres-
sion [65]. In fact, l and r are the only viable tools to define the
SWS output data. These parameters can be obtained by a curve fit-
ting of the sensor output distribution collected from the entire
memory cells. More descriptions about the curve fitting procedure
to determine l and r can be found in [65]. Consequently, the dam-
age state is logically considered to be a function of l and r. In the
present study, the cumulative time of occurrences at predetermined
strain levels are determined for the sensors. Then, the correspond-
ing l and r values for each damage scenario were obtained through
the fitting of a CDF (Eq. (2)) to the cumulative duration of strain
events. Then, more in-depth analyses were conducted to find the
Fig. 2. A schematic representation of the PDF shifts due to damage progression.
721
relationship between the PDF parameters (l and r) and damage
state. The major advantage of the proposed method is that it is
based on relative variations in the strain response distributions.
This means that there is no need to measure damage directly. The
effect of damage is ‘‘sensed” by the sensors, and it is evaluated
based on relative shifts of PDFs over time. This is schematically
shown in Fig. 2 and will be proved in this study. When the sensors
are deployed in a network, the sensors that are closer to critical
locations will experience more prominent shifts in the distributions
compared to other sensors. Knowing the exact location of these sen-
ð1Þ
The analyses carried out in this study were divided into two
main stages. First, a 3D FE model was developed to obtain the
response of the asphalt pavement under moving load. The main
goal was to detect the fatigue cracking due to excessive tensile
strain at the bottom of the asphalt concrete. Then, an experimental
study was carried out to evaluate the performance of the sensors
embedded inside an asphalt concrete slab.
2.2. Finite element modeling of pavement
A 3D FE model was developed to analyze the dynamic response
of the pavement under a moving truck tire loading. ABAQUS was
used for the modeling and post-processing of the results. A series
of acquisition nodes were considered at the bottom of the asphalt
layer as the potential sensors. The studied pavement is composed
of 3 layers: asphalt, base and subgrade layers. The FE model is
shown in Fig. 3.
ð2Þ 2.2.1. Geometry
The model has a dimension of 6200 mm (244 in.) along the
direction of traffic and 4170 mm (164 in.) along the transverse
direction (the width of one lane). A model of such size was used
to minimize any edge effect errors, especially on the longitudinal
tensile strain.
2.2.2. Material properties and thickness of layers
Table 1 shows the material properties and thickness of layers of
the pavement system.
2.2.3. Mesh
A schematic illustration of the FE mesh is illustrated in Fig. 4.
The model was idealized with linear hexahedral element of type
(C3D8R). On the basis of a sensitivity analysis, the mesh dimen-
sions were considered about 12.7 mm (0.5 in.) in the loading area
and 25.4 mm far from the contact zone. The total number of
722 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736

Tire

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3 Moving Direction

Fig. 5. A schematic representation of the moving load modeling.

Asphalt Layer
Fig. 3. The 3D FE model for the pavement structure. Strain measurement

2 inches
0.5 inch
Table 1
Material properties and layer thickness. Crack Zone

Layer E m Thickness
Base Layer
Asphalt layer 2757.9 MPa (400 ksi) 0.35 152.4 mm (6 in.)
Base 344.7 MPa (50 ksi) 0.35 127 mm (5 in.)
Subgrade 34.55 MPa (5 ksi) 0.48 4826 mm (190 in.)

Subgrade

Fig. 6. Crack zone and measurement location.

Fig. 4. The FE model mesh.
elements was 615,076 elements of type C3D8R. Due to the high
number of degrees of freedom of the model, a supercomputer
was used to run the Abaqus simulations for both the intact and
damaged models. The available servers with high performance
computing at Division of Engineering Computing Services (DECS)
at MSU were used for this aim. Using a server with 384 GB RAM
and 72 logical RAM, the simulation time for the intact configura-
tion took around 42 h.
2.2.4. Boundary conditions
The vertical or horizontal movements at the bottom of the layer
were restrained. Also, there was no horizontal displacements per-
pendicular to the perimeters of the pavement while the rotation
was free. Furthermore, to simulate a new pavement condition,
the interface between different layers had no relative movement.
the element can be used to calculate the step time. In this study,
it was supposed that the vehicle runs at a constant speed of
6 mph (about 10 km/h). The tire pressure was taken 0.69 MPa
(100 psi). The load was moved a 76.2-mm (3 in.) in each increment
over 6 elements. The total number of increments (locations of the
load) required to achieve one full passage of the tire over the entire
model was 32. More details about the procedure followed in this
study to simulate the moving load can be found in Al-Qadi and
Wang [68].
2.2.6. Location of sensors and damage zone
Fig. 6 shows the location of the sensors. As it is seen, the sensors
were located at a distance of 50.8 mm (2 in.) from the bottom of
the asphalt layer. Fig. 7 illustrates the layout of sensors inside
the pavement. The distance between two consecutive sensors is
304.8 mm (12 in.). Also, distance of Sensors 1 and 9 from vertical
boundaries was equal to 1880 mm (74 in.). In this analysis, 55 sen-
sors were used to measure the longitudinal and transversal strains.

2.2.5. Loading
To simulate the movement of the load at the desired speed, a
quasi-static analysis was adopted [68]. The location of the load
and its amplitude were gradually shifted over the loading path at
each step until a single wheel pass is completed (Fig. 5). Based
on the concept of a continuously moving load, an element is
increasingly loaded when the load approaches and then unloaded
as the load leaves it [68,69]. The traffic speed and the length of Fig. 7. Layout of data acquisition nodes.
 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736 723

(a) 100 (b) 100

Intact Intact
80 80
Damaged Damaged

Transverse Strain (μɛ)

Transverse Strain (μɛ)
60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
-20 -20
Time (sec) Time (sec)
(a) Sensor 3 (b) Sensor 4
(c) 100 (d) 100
Intact Intact
80 80
Damaged Damaged

Transverse Strain (μɛ)

Transverse Strain (μɛ)

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
-20 -20
Time (sec) Time (sec)
(c) Sensor 5 (d) Sensor 6

(e) 100
Intact
80 Damaged
Transverse Strain (μɛ)

60

40

20

0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
-20
Time (sec)
(e) Sensor 7
Fig. 8. Comparison of the transverse tensile strains for the intact and damaged pavement.

Based on the FE simulations, the strain values for sensing nodes far 2.3. Laboratory testing of the embedded system
from the loading path are very low. Thus, it is not feasible for the
sensors to detect the change. Consequently, out of the available The performance of the sensors was tested through an experi-
sensors, only those along the loading path which experienced mental study on an asphalt concrete specimen. The sample was
strains higher than 20 le were kept for the analysis. These are tested under a three point bending configuration. The test setup
Sensors 1–9 located under the loading path. Since the tire loading is schematically shown in Fig. 10. As it seen, the test fixture is sim-
imprint area was started from the location of Sensor 1 and termi- ilar to that of Single Edge Notched Beam SE(B) Test which is one of
nated by Sensor 9, only the results for Sensors 3 and 7, located at an the most documented methods to determine fracture properties
adequate distance from loading points, were included in the [70,71]. However, the size of the sensor packaging (about 1 in.)
analysis. Later, a new FE model was developed with a damage zone limits the use of recommend by ASTM E1820-09 [70] for the beam
at the bottom of the asphalt layer. The length of the crack zone was geometry in the SE(B) method. In this study, the fixture was devel-
0.5 in. from the bottom of the asphalt layer (Fig. 6). The location of oped for an asphalt concrete sample with a span length of 381 mm
the sensors was the same as the intact model. Sensor 5 is above the (15 in.), thickness of 165.1 mm (6.5 in.) and a width of 152.4 mm
damaged area. (6 in.) (Fig. 11). The rollers have a diameter of 30 mm (1.2 in.)
and are setup to be free in rotation. The slab was built using the
HMA, 4E1 mixture type provided by Michigan Department of
2.2.7. FE simulation results Transportation (MDOT). The sample was compacted using PReS-
Figs. 8 and 9 show the transverse and longitudinal strains for BOX Asphalt Shear-box Compactor. The temperature was around
the intact and damaged pavements. As it is seen, the damaged 150 °C (302 °F). The weight of the hot mix asphalt (HMA) was
pavement experiences higher strains in all sensor locations. This 25 kg and the length of the slab was equal to 450 mm (17.75 in.).
is more evident for Sensor 5 which is located above the damage The center load point was designed to provide a uniform loading.
zone. The three point bend tests were carried out using an MTS machine.
724 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736

(a) 80 (b) 80
Intact Intact

Longitudinal Strain (μɛ)

Longitudinal Strain (μɛ)

60 60
Damaged Damaged
40 40

20 20

0 0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
-20 -20

-40 -40
Time (sec) Time (sec)
(a) Sensor 3 (b) Sensor 4

(c) 80 (d) 80
Intact Intact
Longitudinal Strain (μɛ)

Longitudinal Strain (μɛ)

60 60
Damaged Damaged
40 40

20 20

0 0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
-20 -20

-40 -40
Time (sec) Time (sec)
(c) Sensor 5 (d) Sensor 6
(e) 80
Intact
Longitudinal Strain (μɛ)

60 Damaged

40

20

0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
-20

-40
Time (sec)
(e) Sensor 7
Fig. 9. Comparison of the longitudinal tensile strains for the intact and damaged pavement.

Load
Intact : Intact plateða ¼ 0 mmÞ

Damage 1 : a ¼ 22:2 mmð7=8 in:Þ

Damage 2 : a ¼ 31:75 mmð1 1=400 Þ

For this stage, different damage states were defined to evaluate
the sensitivity of the sensors to the damage severity. After introduc-
ing the second damage phase, the displacement was increased to
Fig. 10. Single edge notched beam test [71]. 0.3 mm to evaluate the behavior of the sample for higher
amplitudes. After a number of cyclic loadings, a crack propagation
phenomenon was observed. The crack length was 12.7 mm
All tests were conducted under constant axial displacement rate (0.5 in.). This new damage phase was considered as Damage 3.
control. The tests were done at 2 and 5 Hz loading frequency for Accordingly, the total of length of crack for Damage 3 was
0.1, 0.15 and 0.2 mm amplitudes. Before starting the test, a preload 44.45 mm (1 3/400 ). Fig. 12 illustrates the captured crack growth in
equal to 0.5 kN was applied to the sample to ensure it is seated on the test.
the fixture. Thereafter, the cyclic displacements were applied.
The main goal was to evaluate the response of the embedded 2.3.1. Design and implementation of a small scale packaging system
piezoelectric transducers due to damage progression. Damage Current installation procedures demand considerable care dur-
was introduced by making a notch at the bottom of the asphalt ing construction. This is to insure that the commonly-used H-
layer using a circular saw. The damage states were defined by gages are properly bonded to the pavement surface layer, and are
increasing the notch size (a) as follows: properly aligned in both horizontal and vertical directions. For the
 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736 725

(a) Three point bending configuration

(b) A typical notched specimen representing Damage 2

Fig. 11. Test setup and sensor locations.

when the epoxy is strained, an induced axial loading is applied

12.7 mm
Fig. 12. The crack propagation phase during the test (Damage state 3).
purpose of this study, the packaging system was miniaturized so
that it can be tossed in the pavement material during construction
or can be used within a mesh network distributed over the base layer
(Fig. 13). The size of the designed spherical packaging system was of
the same order of a coarse aggregate particle. All the electronics
already have a small size and the antenna can be miniaturized to
fit the desired size. The spherical packaging systems were designed
using SolidWorks software and built by a 3D printer. The manufac-
tured mould is shown in Fig. 14. The top part has an opening to
put epoxy into the mould. The two parts combine together as a
sphere with six anchor legs in three directions (see Fig. 15).
The RFID, antenna and electronics are fragile and sensitive
parts. They also have very low melting temperature. As a result,
they cannot survive alone in asphalt pavement because asphalt
pavement is under high pressure and temperature during con-
structions. Epoxy materials have relatively high melting tempera-
ture and excellent flexibility. Thus, epoxy materials can be used
as the protectors for the sensor electronics. On the other hand,
to the piezo. Therefore, choosing an appropriate epoxy resin to
manufacture the spherical casing is an important issue. There
should be stiffness compatibility between the epoxy and the host
material (HMA). Stiffness compatibility can be achieved using
epoxy with a lower stiffness than the host material. Also, non-
metallic materials should be used so that it allows for wireless
communication. Among different epoxies tested (e.g. AralditeÒ
GY-6010 and EPIC S7514), ConathaneÒ TU-981 epoxy was found
to perform better. The robustness of the ConathaneÒ TU-981 epoxy
to withstand harsh environmental conditions has been already
verified [64]. Thus, this epoxy was used for encasing the proposed
spherical packaging system. ConathaneÒ TU-981 is a
two-component liquid casting system that produces a 65-Shore
D elastomer of exceptional toughness and extraordinary process-
ing flexibility. Table 2 shows the basic properties of this epoxy.
The elastic modulus of the ConathaneÒ TU-981 epoxy was
obtained through an experimental study. The MTS machine was
to this aim. The dimension of the Epoxy TU-981 sample was
40  35  16 mm (length  width  height). The tests were done
using cyclic loading on two directions of epoxy specimens
(Fig. 14). Fig. 16 shows the stress and strain curves for the epoxy
material. The calculated elastic modulus is shown in Table 3. As
it is seen, the elastic modulus of Epoxy TU-981 is 258.8 MPa.
Besides, the survivability of the epoxy in high pressure and tem-
perature during asphalt pavement compaction was verified using
the Asphalt Shear-box Compactor. For brevity, the results for this
phase are not presented.
Fig. 17 presents the manufacturing process of the packaging
system with embedded piezoelectric transducers. The epoxy resin
was cured for 24 h at room temperature. A total of 3 lead zirconate
titanate (PZT) ceramic transducers with spherical packaging were
embedded within the asphalt layer in slab compactor. The PZT
properties are shown in Table 4.
726 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736

Fig. 13. The designed sensing system in a spherical casing.

The spheres were located at a distance of approximately 2 in.

from the bottom of the layer. The first PZT was placed at mid-
span and the remaining ones were located at a distance of
76.2 mm (3 in.) from the middle PZT. The layout of the PZTs is
shown in Fig. 18. After compaction, the PZT output voltage was
read on NI 9220 data acquisition system (with 1 GX impedance)
in parallel with a resistor with an impedance similar to the self-
powered wireless sensors (50 MX).

2.3.2. Comparison of the maximum voltage delivered by PZTs for

different damage states
The preliminary tests showed that PZT 1 located at the middle
of the slab was not delivering voltage. A probable reason was
Fig. 14. Top part (right) and bottom part (left) mould.
failure of the PZT or the connection wires during the compaction

Fig. 15. Elastic modulus test (Direction 1 and direction 2).

 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736
Table 2
The basic properties of ConathaneÒ TU-981 epoxy.
TU-981 Part A
Color Light Amber
Appearance Translucent
Viscosity 25C, cps 2800
% NCO 12
Specific gravity @ 25C 1.05
Cured flex strength 13.1 MPa
Fig. 16. Stress strain curve of Epoxy TU-981.
Table 3
Test results for the elastic modulus of Epoxy TU-981.
Epoxy TU-981 Test 1 Test 2
Elastic modulus (MPa) 248.7 265.7
Average (MPa) 258.8
process. Accordingly, the results for the other PZTs were recorded
and presented in Figs. 19 and 20. As can be observed in these fig-
ures, the PZTs are experiencing higher strains and therefore out-
putting higher voltage by increasing the notch size.
3. Damage detection using smart sensing technology
This section presents the damage detection results based on the
information sensed by the SWS. First, the results obtained by the
FE model are analyzed. Thereafter, the performance of the sensor
is verified using the laboratory test results.
3.1. Damage detection: FE model
As discussed before, a series of sensing nodes was considered
near the bottom of the asphalt layer to detect the damage progres-
sion. Fatigue cracking is one of these distresses and it is caused by
excessive tensile strain at the bottom of the asphalt concrete
[72,73]. Considering the importance of tensile strain in the predic-
tion of fatigue cracking, this type of strain was measured for the
analysis. Referring to Section 2.2.6, the results for sensors with a
reasonable distance from loading points were included, i.e., Sen-
sors 3 and 7. A smart pebble wireless sensor has a series of memory
cells (gates). Each of these gates cumulatively stores the duration
of strain events at a preselected levels, experienced at the sensing
node location. In general, the number of gates is dependent on the
nature of the problem and the material. In this study, 10 strain
levels were defined to efficiently cover the lower and upper limits
of the strain values extracted from the FE simulations. The
727
Part B PART B Black Test method
Dark Amber Black Visual
Translucent Opaque Visual
190 190 ASTM D2393
N/A N/A N/A
1.06 1.06 ASTM D792
minimum level of strains to be captured by piezoelectric transduc-
ers was about 20.00 le. On the other hand, the maximum of the
Test 3 strain value extracted from the FE simulations was about 97 le.
262.1 Considering a reasonable value of 10 strain levels for the gates,
the difference between the strain levels is 8.56 le. Table 5 presents
the preselected strain levels for the pavement layer. Using the
strain histories of all elements, a script is written in MATLAB to
perform the following tasks:
a) Takes the strain-time data from Abaqus and measures the
duration of events at the strain levels defined in Table 5.
b) Fits CDF given in Eq. (2) to the cumulative time of occur-
rences at predetermined strain levels obtained from the first
step.
c) Reports the l and r for the data acquisition nodes for the
intact and damaged models.
Fig. 21 shows the cumulative time at predefined strain levels
versus the gate numbers, along with the fitted CDF curve. Using
the l and r values, the PDF plot corresponding to each sensor
was obtained and shown in Figs. 22 and 23. As can be seen in these
figures, l decreases and r increases by transitioning from intact to
damaged mode. Accordingly, the PDFs shift to left, their width
increases and their height decreases due to damage progression.
It is evident that for Sensor 5 which located above the crack, there
is a distinct change in the PDF shape. It is worth mentioning that
even for sensors far from the damage, the PDFs still shift to left
and expand due to damage progression.
As discussed in Sections 3.1, it is possible to detect the
damage progression with individual (point) sensors. The point
sensors provide discrete and localized measurements. Although
they deliver valuable quantitative information, measurements
at a single location might not be sufficient for accurate damage
detection [74,75]. Rationally, the closer the sensors to the notch
are, the higher the damage detection accuracy is. For the cases
where the potential sensors are at a far distance from the
imposed damage, the sensor may not have a sense of damage
728 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736

Fig. 17. Manufacturing process of spherical packaging.

Table 4
The PZT properties.

Parameter Value
Diameter 20 mm (a) 1.00
Thickness 3 mm 0.90 PZT 2 PZT 3
Piezo material SM111 (PZT-4) 0.80
Voltage (volt)

Resonant frequency 690 KHz ± 3% 0.70

0.60
Resonant impedance (Zm) 63.6 X 0.50
Static capacitance (Cs) 1265 pF ± 10% 0.40
Piezoelectric constant d33 320  1012 m/v 0.30
d31 140  1012 m/v 0.20
0.10
Density 7.9 g/cm3 0.00
Electromechanical coupling coefficient Kp 0.58 Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3
Kt 0.45
K31 0.34
(a) Displacement: 0.1 mm

(b) 1.50
1.30 PZT 2 PZT 3
Voltage (volt)

1.10
0.90
PZT 2 PZT 1 PZT 3 0.70
0.50
0.30
0.10
-0.10
3'' Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3

(b) Displacement: 0.15 mm

(c) 2.00
1.80 PZT 2 PZT 3
1.60
Voltage (volt)

1.40
1.20
1.00
0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00
Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3

(c) Displacement: 0.2 mm

Fig. 19. A comparison of maximum delivered voltage by PZT discs for 2 Hz loading
Fig. 18. Layout of the spherical packaging in the compactor. frequency.
 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736 729

(a) 1.00 variation of the STD of l and r of group of sensors was taken
0.90 PZT 2 PZT 3 into account. Fig. 23 presents the variation of the STD of l
0.80
and r of all of the sensors. As it is seen, the STD of l and r
Voltage (volt)

0.70
0.60 of group of sensors increases with damage progression.
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
3.2. Damage detection: laboratory testing
0.10
0.00 The damage detection results are provided for amplitude of
Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3 0.2 mm and loading frequencies of 2 and 5 Hz. In this study, 7 volt-
(a) Displacement: 0.1 mm age levels were defined to efficiently cover the lower and upper
limits of the strains experienced by the specimen. The minimum
(b) 1.50 and maximum voltage values outputted by piezoelectric transduc-
1.30 PZT 2 PZT 3 ers were 0.35 and 1.73 V for the tested loading amplitudes. 7 volt-
1.10 age levels were taken for the gates. The minimum and maximum
Voltage (volt)

0.90
voltage thresholds were set to 0.2 and 2 V, respectively. Accord-
0.70
0.50
ingly, the difference between the strain levels is 0.3 V. Table 7 pre-
0.30 sents the preselected voltage levels for the pavement layer. It
0.10 should be noted that the voltage supplied by piezoelectric trans-
-0.10 ducers is proportional to experienced strain [54]. Consequently,
Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3
using voltage or corresponding strain values does not affect the
(b) Displacement: 0.15 mm damage analysis trends. However, the recorded voltage histories
of PZTs 2 and 3 were inputted into a script in MATLAB to find
(c) 2.00 the l and r of the strain distribution in the intact and damaged
1.80 PZT 2 PZT 3
1.60 models. The l and r values were then used to plot the PDFs corre-
Voltage (volt)

1.40 sponding to each sensor (Figs. 24 and 25). For brevity, the cumula-
1.20
1.00 tive time versus gate numbers and the fitted CDF curves are not
0.80 presented. Also, since there were merely 2 sensors were involved,
0.60
0.40
performing the group effect analysis was not done. As can be seen
0.20 in Figs. 24 and 25, the values of l and r, respectively, decrease and
0.00
increase due to damage progression. This is in accordance with
Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3 what previously observed for the FE model. Interestingly, the PDFs
(c) Displacement: 0.2 mm changes notably by transiting from Intact to Damage 1 compared
to other stages. This is because the first introduced notch was dee-
Fig. 20. A comparison of maximum delivered voltage by PZT discs for 5 Hz loading per than those considered for Damage states 2 and 3. Additionally,
frequency. the crack propagation process was accurately detected by the
sensors.

Table 5
The preselected strain levels considered for the analysis.
Gate number Strain level (le)
1 20.00
2 28.56
3 37.11
4 45.67
5 54.22
6 62.78
7 71.33
8 79.89
9 88.44
10 97.00
or the results may not have a reasonable trend. Thus, a poten-
tially more effective strategy was defined to improve the damage
detection performance through spatial measurements over an
area of the plate. On this basis, it was decided to use the infor-
mation provided by a group of sensors, termed as ‘‘group effect”.
In this case, even if one sensor does not sense the damage, the
group effect will help detect the damage. The main goal was
to find the relationship between the PDF parameters of a group
of sensors and damage progression. To this aim, average, stan-
dard deviation (STD), range, minimum, maximum, skewness,
and kurtosis of the PDF parameters (l and r) for the group of
sensors (Sensors 3–7) were obtained and normalized. Based on
preliminary analyses, the average, range, minimum, maximum,
skewness, and kurtosis of the PDF parameters did not have a
sound relationship with the damage progression. Thus, only the
4. Discussion
A major problem with utilization of the existing wireless sen-
sors is providing a reliable power source for them. To cope with
this concern, a novel approach has been developed in this study
for the continuous battery-less monitoring of structures. The
results for the numerical and experimental study clearly indicate
that the outputs of the developed Self-powered sensor are damage
indicators. The main observation from both of the FE and labora-
tory studies was that the PDFs obtained from the cumulative time
histograms change reasonably with damage progression. The
expansion of PDFs and their shift to left side was shown as a sign
of damage occurrence. In general, changes of r seem to be a better
sign of damage progression. On the other hand, the experimental
study proved that the designed miniaturized sensor packaging
withstands temperature and pressure during compaction. Such
small size system can be easily used and integrated in large-scale
sensor networks by State highway agencies. However, in addition
to its damage detection capability, the proposed approach gives
an insight into the damage localization and quantification. To clar-
ify this issue, the percentage of variation of damage indicator
parameters for the intact and damaged states in the FE simulations
is presented in Table 6 and Fig. 26. As it is seen, the highest varia-
tion belongs to Sensor 5 which is located above the crack zone. The
variation has a proportionally increasing trend as the load
approaches the damage zone (either from Sensors 3 and 4, or from
Sensors 7 and 6 up to Sensor 5). This is valid for both of the l and r
trends.
730 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736

Fig. 21. Cumulative time versus gate numbers for intact and damaged states.

Damage quantification performance can be evaluated for the and 5 Hz loading frequencies are, respectively, shown in Tables 8
experimental results as more damage states are involved. To this and 9. Furthermore, the percentage of changes of these values by
aim, variations of damage indicator parameters (l and r) for 2 transiting from a mode to the consecutive mode is illustrated in
 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736 731

(a) Sensor 3 (b) Sensor 4

(c) Sensor 5 (d) Sensor 6

(e) Sensor 7
Fig. 22. Changes of PDFs due to damage.

Figs. 27 and 28. It should be noted that the notch size was = 12.7 mm for Damage 2 to Damage 3 (crack propagation) mode.
increased 22.2 mm for Intact to Damage 1 mode, (31.75–22.2) Accordingly, the most severe damage state belonged to the
= 9.55 mm for Damage 1 to Damage 2 mode, and (44.45–31.75) Intact-Damage 1 mode followed by the Damage 2-Damage 3 and
732 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736

(a) (b)
1.4 1.4

Normalized STD of σ of All Sensors

Normalized STD of μ of All Sensors

1.2 1.2

1.0 1.0

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0.0 0.0
Intact Damaged Intact Damaged
Fig. 23. The STD of r and l of group of sensors.

(a) Sensor 2 (a) Sensor 2

(b) Sensor 3 (b) Sensor 3

Fig. 24. Changes of PDFs due to damage progression for 2 Hz loading frequency. Fig. 25. Changes of PDFs due to damage progression for 5 Hz loading frequency.
 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736 733

(a) designate the difference between increasing the notch size by

800%
12.7 mm or 9.55 mm. Another observation from Figs. 27
(a) and 28(a) is that variations of l do not provide reasonable infor-
Variation Percentage of μ

600% mation for the damage quantification.

400% 5. Conclusions and future directions

200% This paper presents the performance analysis of a newly

developed self-powered wireless sensor for the continuous
health monitoring of asphalt concrete pavements. The unique-
0% ness of this sensor pertains to the fact that there is no need to
Sensor 3 Sensor 4 Sensor 5 Sensor 6 Sensor 7 directly measure the absolute value of strain in order to estimate
damage. The rate of variation of strain distributions is related to
(b) the rate of damage. Thus, the whole methodology is based on
140%
relative damage. However, a 3D FE model was developed to ana-
Variation Percentage of σ

120% lyze the response of intact and damaged asphalt pavement struc-
tures under moving vehicular loading. The moving load was
100%
simulated using a quasi-static approach. An extensive experi-
80% mental study was further conducted to assess the damage detec-
60% tion performance of the self-sustained long term sensing system.
The laboratory tests were carried out on an asphalt slab in three
40%
point bending mode. A new miniaturized spherical packaging
20% system was designed and manufactured to encase the sensors.
0% Different nonmetallic epoxies were tested to find the most
Sensor 3 Sensor 4 Sensor 5 Sensor 6 Sensor 7 appropriate one for manufacturing of the packaging system.
The piezoelectric transducers were placed inside the spherical
Fig. 26. Percentage of variation of damage indicator parameters for the intact and packaging and the entire package was embedded inside the
damaged states. specimen. The following conclusions can be derived from the
results presented in this research:
Damage 1-Damage 2 modes. As can be observed from Figs. 27
(b) and 28(b), variation of r can be regarded as a good indicator I. The FE simulation results indicate that the proposed system
of damage severity. The variations for the Intact-Damage 1 mode is capable of detecting the bottom-up fatigue cracks intro-
with a deeper notch size are notably higher than the other modes. duced at the bottom of the asphalt layer. The same results
Even for the 5 Hz loading frequency, both of the sensors show a were observed from the laboratory testing. In this case, the
higher variation for the Damage 2-Damage 3 mode compared to sensors could detect different damage states including a
the Damage 1-Damage 2 mode. That is to say, the sensors could crack propagation phase.

(a) 1600%
1400%
Sensor 2
Sensor 3
Variation Percentage

1200%
1000%
of μ

800%
600%
400%
200%
0%
Intact-Damage 1 Damage 1-Damage 2 Damage 2-Damage 3

(b) 200%
180% Sensor 2
Variation Percentage

160% Sensor 3
140%
120%
100%
of σ

80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Intact-Damage 1 Damage 1-Damage 2 Damage 2-Damage 3

Fig. 27. Percentage of changes of l and r values due to damage progression for 2 Hz loading frequency.
734 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736

(a) 300%
Sensor 2
250% Sensor 3

Variation Percentage of
200%

150%

μ
100%

50%

0%
Intact-Damage 1 Damage 1-Damage 2 Damage 2-Damage 3

(b) 80%
70%
Sensor 2
Variation Percentage of

Sensor 3
60%
50%
40%
σ

30%
20%
10%
0%
Intact-Damage 1 Damage 1-Damage 2 Damage 2-Damage 3

Fig. 28. Percentage of changes of l and r values due to damage progression for 5 Hz loading frequency.

Table 6
Variation of damage indicator parameters of l and r.

1st feature: l 2nd feature: r

Intact Damaged Variation percentage Intact Damaged Variation percentage
Sensor 3 1.43 1.87 31% 4.67 5.09 9%
Sensor 4 0.95 1.82 92% 4.23 5.04 19%
Sensor 5⁄ 0.84 7.10 750% 4.12 9.44 129%
Sensor 6 1.08 1.89 75% 4.36 5.10 17%
Sensor 7 1.54 1.98 29% 4.78 5.19 9%

Sensor 5 is located above the crack zone.

Table 7
The preselected strain levels considered for the analysis.
Gate number Voltage level (V)
1 0.20
2 0.50
3 0.80
4 1.10
5 1.40
6 1.70
7 2.00
II. It was found that damage progression can be considered as a
function of PDF parameters (l and r) obtained from the
strain distribution. l and r were derived by curve fitting
of the sensor output distribution collected from the entire
memory cells of the sensor. The important observation from
the individual sensor analysis was that the PDFs shift to left
(l decreases) and their width increases (r increases) due to
the damage progression. Based on the results, variations of r
can be regarded as a better indicator of damage.

Table 8
Variation of damage indicator parameters of l and r for 2 Hz loading frequency.

Displacement 1st feature: l 2nd feature: r

Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3 Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3
0.2 mm Sensor 2 3.38E01 2.29E02 2.38E01 4.44E01 3.12E01 8.87E01 1.13E+00 1.34E+00
Sensor 3 3.39E01 1.02E02 1.29E01 3.48E01 3.06E01 8.47E01 1.01E+00 1.24E+00

Table 9
Variation of damage indicator parameters of l and r for 5 Hz loading frequency.

Displacement 1st Feature: l 2nd Feature: r

Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3 Intact Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3
0.2 mm Sensor 2 2.77E01 7.26E02 1.41E01 5.10E01 4.54E01 7.70E01 1.02E+00 1.41E+00
Sensor 3 3.13E01 1.57E01 2.59E02 3.85E01 3.83E01 6.59E01 8.93E01 1.28E+00
 A.H. Alavi et al. / Construction and Building Materials 114 (2016) 719–736
III. The effect of group of sensors was studied for the numerical
simulations with a number of active sensors. On this basis, it
was shown that the STD of l and r of group of sensors has a
sound relationship with the damage progression. Based on
the results, this parameter increases with the progression of
damage.
IV. Another important observation was the possibility of localiz-
ing the damage and quantifying its severity through the
analysis of the PDF shifts. The variations of both l and r
can be used to localize the damage. In order to evaluate
the damage severity, the changing trend of r was found to
be very informative.
Although the efficiency of the proposed concept is shown for
the pavement structures but its applicability is not limited to this
case. However, there are still some challenges that are the focus
of future research as follows:
a. Considering different type of damages, as well as different
type of structures for the case study of damage identification.
b. Although the FE simulation and laboratory results still
remain satisfactory, verification of the proposed approach
with full-scale experiments would be an interesting topic
for future study. Also, the performance of the whole sensing
system including wireless communication needs to be stud-
ied more in-depth.
Acknowledgment
The presented work is supported by a research grant from the
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) (DTFH61-13-C-00015).
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