This paper presents a field experiment on monitoring of reflective cracks in highway asphalt overlay using a Brillouin scattering based distributed optical fiber sensor. With wheel loading above the joint of existing underlying pavement, the distributed strain of the overlay near the joint was examined. An initial crack was evaluated and predicted from the measured strain distribution. Then the progress of the reflective crack was investigated based on monitoring of the strain distribution of the overlay and the underlying pavement. Within the measurements at three typical times, the contribution of the wheel loading and the asphalt shrinkage induced by the temperature variation are all analyzed and compared.

Date Published: 8 April 2009
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 7294, Nondestructive Characterization for Composite Materials, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Infrastructure, and Homeland Security 2009, 72940O (8 April 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.816690

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7294:
Nondestructive Characterization for Composite Materials, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Infrastructure, and Homeland Security 2009
H. Felix Wu; Aaron A. Diaz; Peter J. Shull; Dietmar W. Vogel, Editor(s)