The BIM (Building Information Modeling)-Based Approach for Road Pavement Maintenance

The recent developments of road pavement survey technologies guarantee acquisition of detailed data regarding the main functional and structural indicators, at a very high frequency and levels of accuracy and precision unconceivable few years ago. The relevant information, regarding surface distresses too, is thus available in economical, high-speed and high-resolution forms, with limited disturbance on traffic and road agencies issues. However, the availability of such a mass of data poses interesting questions concerning the most efficient processing and analysis methods, for optimizing maintenance operation planning. Unfortunately, the PMS adoption is not very common and widespread, as t…

Using Genetic Algorithms for Optimizing the PPC in the Highway Horizontal Alignment Design.

Various studies have emphasized the interesting advantages related to the use of new transition curves for improving the geometric design of highway horizontal alignments. In a previous paper, one of the writers proposed a polynomial curve, called a polynomial parametric curve (PPC), proving its efficiency in solving several design problems characterized by a very complex geometry (egg-shaped transition, transition between reversing circular curves, semidirect and inner-loop connections, and so on). The PPC also showed considerable advantages from a dynamic perspective, as evidenced by the analysis of the main dynamic variables related to motion (as well as rate of change of radial accelera…

Project duration evaluated using affine arithmetic

A civil engineering work can be performed by organizing the available resources (manpower, equipment and materials) in many different ways. Each different configuration results in a realization time and a cost that a building company has to bear. To produce reliable duration forecasts and money savings, it is essential to take into account all the uncertainties involved in the project operations. Generally, since it is impractical to process numerous uncertain variables - also undefined from a statistical point of view -, traditional probabilistic methods involve application difficulties for complex environments such as construction sites. To properly handle this issue, the authors propose …

A PSO highway alignment optimization algorithm considering environmental constraints

In recent years, there has been a growing need to develop and delineate algorithms that quickly provide optimized highway alignments. The matter is very complex since it is dominated by several factors and engineers have to achieve different and relevant targets (such as minimization of construction and earthwork costs, compliance with environmental and right-of-way constraints, maximization of safety and comfort for users, conformity with geometric standards). The possible solutions of this problem are clearly infinite and only modern artificial intelligence techniques can really simplify and speed up the highway design process. In this study a search algorithm, based on a Swarm Artificial…

Hybrid Procedure for Automated Detection of Cracking with 3D Pavement Data

Pavement cracks are considered a major indicator of pavement performance. Because traditional manual crack surveys are dangerous, time consuming, and expensive, technologies have been developed to collect high-speed pavement images, and numerous algorithms have been proposed to detect cracks on pavement surface. The latest PaveVision3D Ultra system (3D Ultra) has been implemented to achieve 30-kHz three-dimensional (3D) scanning rate for 1-mm resolution pavement surface data at highway speed up to 100 km/h (60  mi/h). This paper presents the application of a hybrid procedure for automated crack detection on 3D pavement data collected using 3D Ultra. The procedure combines three different me…

Apparato per tracciare lo stato della superficie di un pavimento e procedimento di bilanciamento dinamico di un tale apparato

Primary Data Collection and Environmental/Energy Audit of Hot Mix Asphalt Production

The development of the road construction sector determines the consequences on consumption of non-renewable resources, energy expenditure and environmental pollution. Recent sustainability issues have highlighted the importance of efficient design and quality-oriented techniques in this sector, due to the huge amount of materials involved in construction and maintenance activities. Thus, it is necessary to properly quantify the environmental impacts of asphalt mixtures used for pavement construction, considering the whole life cycle of the products. Life cycle assessment (LCA) represents the most appropriate methodological framework for assessing the environmental burdens of a product, from…

Potentialities of a Highway Alignment Optimization Method in an I-BIM Environment

The BIM (Building Information Modeling) approach potential in the civil engineering field opened novel scenarios in the design idea concept, from planning to executive and constructive phases. The related advantages are numerous and not only limited to a real-time interaction among the involved subjects, that can actually operate in an optimized 3D shared environment. Owing to the sharing information philosophy and to the features of various "smart objects" combined in the project, this innovation reduces potential errors and increases the effectiveness of the design solution in terms of both functionality and cost. Despite these advantages, the highway alignment design problem remains very…

LCA of an Asphalt Mixture Produced in a Southern Italian Plant: Analysis and Perspectives

In recent years, a growing attention on environmental issues affecting all fields and procedures of the productive sectors has raised, aiming to reduce energy and raw-material consumptions and pollution effects on environment. Due to the involved volumes and to the nature of the related materials and productive processes, the civil and road sectors have been strongly invested by this change of perspective. Therefore, a proper estimation of the environmental impacts for the entire life cycle of the asphalt mixtures for road construction and maintenance activities is extremely important. For performing similar investigations, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become one of the most reliable and…

An ANN model to correlate roughness and structural performance in asphalt pavements

Abstract In this paper, using a large database from the Long Term Pavement Performance program, the authors developed an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to estimate the structural performance of asphalt pavements from roughness data. Considering advantages of modern high-performance survey devices in the acquisition of road pavement functional parameters, it would be of practical significance if the structural state of a pavement could be estimated from its functional conditions. To differentiate various road section conditions, several significant input parameters, related to traffic, weather, and structural aspects, have been included in the analysis. The results are very interesting and …

Automatic crack detection results using a novel device for survey and analysis of road pavement condition

To accurately schedule maintenance operations, it is crucial to monitor the pavement state and, thus, evaluate the structural and functional indices during its entire service life. In particular, surface conditions (cracks, potholes, patches, rutting, etc.) must be properly checked – especially in terms of detection, identification, and classification of distresses – for avoiding reaching dangerous values for users (overpassing safety thresholds). However, monitoring and survey activities can be so costly (not only in economic terms, but further considering the execution time) to discourage their execution, with evident drawbacks for a proper maintenance management and the related intervent…

Un algoritmo PSO per l’ottimizzazione planimetrica dei tracciati stradali

Questo studio propone un algoritmo di ricerca basato sulla tecnica di Intelligenza Artificiale di tipo Swarm (Particle Swarm Optimization - PSO) che consente di ottimizzare la geometria dei tracciati stradali, minimizzando una particolare funzione di costo che tiene conto di voci condizionanti la geometria del tracciato e di penalità relative ai vincoli presenti nel territorio. La pianificazione e la progettazione di un tracciato stradale costituiscono fasi intense di studio, fondamentali per garantire la sicurezza dell’infrastruttura. Definire un tracciato corretto, nel rispetto dei vincoli, può richiedere molto tempo e solo l’esperienza del Progettista e una approfondita analisi del terri…

How is the Driver's Workload Influenced by the Road Environment?

Abstract This paper focuses on the study of the driver's workload while driving on a rural two-lane road with different traffic flows. The aim of the research is to examine a parameter that could be representative of the driving effort, quite sensible to the external factors that cause disturbance to the regular driving activity. To solve this problem, the authors used a specific instrumented vehicle for monitoring some physiological parameters of the driver (as the eye movements and the Galvanic Skin Resistance), referring their values to the road context. The results are very interesting and confirm that knowing the workload is useful to improve the road safety only if it is related to th…

ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT VISUAL STRATEGIES OF 'ISOLATED VEHICLE' AND 'DISTURBED VEHICLE'

This paper analyses the driver’ visual behaviour in the different conditions of ‘isolated vehicle’ and ‘disturbed vehicle’. If the meaning of the former is clear, the latter condition considers the influence on the driving behaviour of various objects that could be encountered along the road. These can be classified in static (signage, stationary vehicles at the roadside, etc.) and dynamic objects (cars, motorcycles, bicycles). The aim of this paper is to propose a proper analysis regarding the driver’s visual behaviour. In particular, the authors examined the quality of the visually informa-tion acquired from the entire road environment, useful for detecting any critical safety condition. …

Road Functional Classification Using Pattern Recognition Techniques

The existing international standards suggest a methodology to assign a specific functional class to a road, by the values of some features, both geometrical and use-related. Sometimes, these characteristics are in contrast with each other and direct the analyst towards conflicting classes for a road or, worse, one or more of these features vary heterogeneously along the road. In these conditions, the analyst assigns the class that, by his capability and experience, he retains the most appropriate, in a very subjective way. On the contrary, the definition of an automatic procedure assuring an objective identification of the most appropriate functional class for each road would be desirable. …

Compaction of Open-Graded HMAs Evaluated by a Fuzzy Clustering Technique

The aim of this paper is the proposal of an expeditious procedure to be used during the execution of an asphalt layer for improving the compaction task. This procedure, based on a fuzzy clustering technique, starts from the knowledge of some information recorded by ordinary measuring instruments and provides an aid to the decision-maker on the number of roller passes needed to achieve a specific density at a certain temperature. This result can be deduced with great rapidity during the paving operations on site without waiting for the time spent in the core extraction and in the subsequent laboratory analysis. In this way it is possible to identify more precisely which aspects of the execut…

Road design problems solved by affine arithmetic

In this paper we propose the use of techniques based on range numbers for solving problems of road designing. We applied the Affine Arithmetic to verify the driver's visibility in a horizontal curve, providing very interesting results and confirming its usefulness even in the most complex analytical expressions. The preparation of charts such as those proposed in this paper also makes this method directly accessible to those not so familiar with this technique.

Automatic Segmentation and Enhancement of Pavement Cracks Based on 3D Pavement Images

Pavement cracking is a significant symptom of pavement deterioration and deficiency. Conventional manual inspections of road condition are gradually replaced by novel automated inspection systems. As a result, a great amount of pavement surface information is digitized by these systems with a high resolution. With pavement surface data, pavement cracks can be detected using crack detection algorithms. In this paper, a fully automated algorithm for segmenting and enhancing pavement crack is proposed, which consists of four major procedures. First, a preprocessing procedure is employed to remove spurious noise and rectify the original 3D pavement data. Second, crack saliency maps are segmente…

Laboratory and in-situ tests for estimating improvements in asphalt concrete with the addition of an LDPE and EVA polymeric compound

Abstract Pavement deformation is a critical issue in the design of pavement structures and the related mixture. Asphalt concretes may be very sensitive to this problem, in compliance with the viscoelastic behaviour of the adopted bitumen. To improve the material performance, many attempts have been made to introduce in the mixture other materials as “modifiers” or “additives” for increasing the permanent deformation resistance and the elastic modulus of the material. Among the different possible materials, polymers determined significant improvements in the road pavement performance. In this paper, the authors tested the adoption of a specifically engineered polymeric compound, in order to …

An algorithm based on the PPC (Polynomial Parametric Curve) for designing horizontal highway alignments

Criteria for geometric design of highway alignments have been studied in various researches so far, providing new methods, as alternative to traditional approaches. They can be useful for obtaining better solutions, characterized by high performances in terms of motion safety and comfort. In particular, continuous curvature alignments, based on polynomial functions, are highly consistent solutions with users' driving behaviour and vehicle trajectories. Moreover, alignment geometry optimization allows engineers to minimize dynamic effects on drivers with considerable advantages in terms of comfort and safety. This paper carries on the research of a previous study, in which a polynomial param…

Impact Analysis Using Life Cycle Assessment of Asphalt Production from Primary Data

Road construction and maintenance have a great impact on the environment, owing to the huge volumes of resources involved. Consequently, current production procedures and technologies must be properly investigated, for identifying and quantifying the life cycle environmental impacts produced. In this paper, primary data, i.e., site-specific data directly collected or measured on a reference plant, are analyzed for calculating the impact of the production of a hot mix asphalt. The analysis is performed in a from &ldquo

Time reduction for completion of a civil engineering construction using fuzzy clustering techniques

In the civil engineering field, there are usually unexpected troubles that can cause delays during execution. This situation involves numerous variables (resource number, execution time, costs, working area availability, etc.), mutually dependent, that complicate the definition of the problem analytical model and the related resolution. Consequently, the decision-maker may avoid rational methods to define the activities that could be conveniently modified, relying only on his personal experience or experts’ advices. In order to improve this kind of decision from an objective point of view, the authors analysed the operation correction using a data mining technique, called Fuzzy Clustering. …

Optimizing artificial neural networks for the evaluation of asphalt pavement structural performance

Artificial Neural Networks represent useful tools for several engineering issues. Although they were adopted in several pavement-engineering problems for performance evaluation, their application on pavement structural performance evaluation appears to be remarkable. It is conceivable that defining a proper Artificial Neural Network for estimating structural performance in asphalt pavements from measurements performed through quick and economic surveys produces significant savings for road agencies and improves maintenance planning. However, the architecture of such an Artificial Neural Network must be optimised, to improve the final accuracy and provide a reliable technique for enriching d…