Fatigue damage assessment of electric roads based on probabilistic load models

Abstract

The electro-mobility is becoming an increasingly present reality in recent years. The most important drawback of this technology is known to be limited battery autonomy. In an attempt to overcome this problem, for specific studies and testing, a number of roads have been implemented with coil systems in order to transfer power to electric vehicles, as described in this article. While on the one hand this could solve the problem of charging, on the other hand the introduction of a technology within an existing infrastructure could result in further structural issues. Since little or no information on the possible structural effect of the introduction of a charging system in the road is currently available, this study has focused on the long-term fatigue analysis of an electric road infrastructure in which an inductive wireless charging system has been introduced into the road structure. To perform the fatigue analysis, a recursive procedure defined within a probabilistic framework was developed and applied to a benchmark case study. The results obtained from the analysis represent an initial database for the definition of strategies and protocols for the monitoring, maintenance and operations of future electric roads infrastructures.