Self-sensing cross-tensioned concrete pavements for vehicle load evaluation via use of FBG smart steel strands

• Concrete pavement prestressed with smart steel strands can self-sense vehicle load. • The smart cross-tensioned concrete pavement shows a 100% sensor survival rate and engineering feasibility. • A novel method for identifying dynamic vehicle weight, trajectory, and speed is proposed. • The full-scale field experiment proves the sensing accuracy for vehicle weight and speed can reach 85% and 95%, respectively. • A self-sensing strategy is developed to real-timely detect vehicle parameters based on the time domain moving window. Monitoring the properties of dynamic traffic loads is important for traffic control and highway safety insurance. This research introduces a new type of smart road pavement structure, which employs smart steel strands, embedded with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, to prestress cross-tensioned concrete pavements (CTCP), forming smart CTCP (SCTCP). In this way, the pavement naturally carries a sensing modality. To prove the engineering feasibility of SCTCP and develop the vehicle load self-sensing modality, in this work, a full-scale SCTCP slab was constructed and field loading tests were conducted. The influence of vehicle load, speed, and trajectory on signal output features were analyzed. An identification scheme is then proposed for sensing vehicle load parameters, which reveals more than 85% and 95% accuracy in terms of wheel weight and speed identification, respectively. Finally, a real-time self-sensing strategy for SCTCP is generated. All vehicle load parameters can be automatically characterized.