Breaking Ground at ASPIRE: Studying Pavement Integrity with UTEP

Researchers at ASPIRE are not only looking at ways to build electrification up but also studying the ways it breaks down. On September 23, a falling weight Deflectometer truck from the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) came to the research center. In this effort with ASPIRE’s team at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), researchers sought to test different pavement materials and whether or not they can withstand the same wear and tear as traditional roads.

One of the projects at ASPIRE is Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer (DWPT) and building confidence in electrified roadways in terms of durability and constructability. Because these roads need wireless charging pads embedded in the pavement, it’s important to know how well they hold up under real traffic.

“The question we wanted to answer is whether having that pad in the road changes how the pavement carries traffic loads,” said Pedram Balooch Sirgani, a civil engineering PhD candidate with ASPIRE at UTEP.

“In the lab we control almost everything. At the EVR we got to see how the same ideas hold up at full scale with a real truck and real pavement layers.”

Sirgani has been with ASPIRE since 2023 and his PhD research focuses on wireless charging systems embedded in asphalt pavements, a direct connection to the project at ASPIRE’s headquarters, the Electric Vehicle & Roadway (EVR) research facility. At the USU site, Sirgani was in the field during the drop tests and has since been working on processing the fiber optic and deflection data.

“That includes turning millions of strain readings into profiles and animations that show how the pavement responds as the truck tire moves over the pad,” he said.

A Look Inside the Pavement

Fiber optic sensors were embedded through the pads sitting beneath concrete, asphalt, and interlocking pavers. The team used distributed strain sensing fiber optics that are able to measure the response of the pavement sections as a loaded electric truck drives over them. At the same time, the falling weight deflectometer (FWD) truck applied controlled impulse loads to the pavement surface which measured the resulting surface deflections.

“As the truck moves across the pavement, these sensors capture the strain response continuously along the section,” explained UTEP Research Associate Professor Cesar Tirado. “That allows us to see whether the embedded DWPT components and their interfaces affect how the pavement responds to traffic loads, which is directly tied to its long-term structural performance and service life.”

Tirado became involved with the project through UTEP and the Center for Transportation Infrastructure Systems (CTIS). Through collaboration with ASPIRE on pavement systems and DWPT research, Tirado helps with the coordination of UTEP’s pavement and instrumentation research and mentors the students who carry out much of that research.

“At UTEP, we usually study pavement performance in controlled settings. The EVR takes that work to full scale,” Tirado said. “It is not separate from our work at UTEP. It is an extension of it, and it gives our students the opportunity to connect modeling and laboratory research with a real-world application.”

From Prediction to Real-World Application

Finding out the strain is instrumental in determining the life of the pavement and estimating how long it’s going to lay. It’s better to determine these figures before being laid under real traffic by designing models here at ASPIRE.

“For transportation agencies, a central question is whether embedded charging systems will compromise pavement performance or shorten service life,” Tirado said. “The field data will help ASPIRE evaluate DWPT designs that provide charging capability while preserving the structural performance expected of a roadway.”

Tyler Munk, ASPIRE’s engineering and infrastructure project manager, has operated as the project lead and liaison between ASPIRE and the Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association (CMHA) — who supported the paving stone installations that were among the pavements tested. He believes that this research will strengthen ASPIRE’s capacity to seamlessly integrate WPT systems into various scenarios.

“Each pavement type has its own pros and cons to installation, cost, durability, longevity,” Munk said. “We’d really like to understand what strain our electrical system is seeing underneath each of those pavement types so we can identify the rights times and the right cases to use each pavement type.”

While the field testing might be over, the research surrounding pavement integrity is far from complete. ASPIRE researchers at UTEP are still interpreting the data gathered from the FWD and fiber optic cables in hopes of furthering real-world electrified roadway deployment.

“We are still analyzing the data so I would not draw conclusions yet,” Tirado said. “But seeing that level of detail in a full-scale electrified pavement was exciting. It is one thing to predict the pavement response in a model; it is another to measure that response directly in the field under a real vehicle load.”

For the latest news, publications, and research highlights from ASPIRE, visit aspire.usu.edu

Contact:

Kat Webb
Brand & Strategic Communication Manager, ASPIRE

Writer:

Lucy Larson
Communication Specialist, ASPIRE

ABOUT ASPIRE
ASPIRE, a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center headquartered at Utah State University, leads groundbreaking research and development at the transportation-grid edge to accelerate electrification. With over 400 global collaborators, ASPIRE focuses on creating seamless, affordable electrified transportation systems, accessible for all vehicle classes, along with the public infrastructure needed to support them. By reducing costs, improving air quality, and fostering economic growth through job creation and workforce training, ASPIRE’s work spans engineering, social science, policy, and business. Partnering with top universities, industry leaders, and community groups, ASPIRE is driving the future of advanced transportation-grid systems. Learn more at aspire.usu.edu.