The use of accelerometers in the pavement performance monitoring and analysis

This study investigated the use of sensor technology to enhance the management of highway infrastructure. With the help of monitoring data, it is possible to assess the current analytical pavement analysis method, which is based on multi-layered elastic analysis, and, thus enhance the pavement design practices in use. Pavement response was measured using different sensors, installed at various depths. Most promising sensors for the continuous monitoring purposes were the accelerometers. The drawback of these sensors is that the measured quantity is acceleration, which must be converted to the deflection via mathematical integration. In this paper some issues related to the manipulation of accelerometer data is presented and discussed, in addition of the discussion of the calculated and measured pavement response.