Properties analysis of self-luminous cement-based materials with different colors and their visual comfort evaluation on pavement

Abstract

The use of distinctive and decorative self-luminous pavements for motorized traffic has dramatically increased worldwide. In this research effort, the composition and optical characteristics of four colors (sky-blue, blue-green, yellow-green, and red) of luminescent powder (LP) were characterized by chemical and physical means. Next, the mechanical, luminescent, and hydration characteristics of four colors of self-luminous cement-based materials (with and without reflective powder) were tested by compressive and flexural strength, fluorescence brightness, hydration heat, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The results show that the red and yellow-green specimens have the best compressive and flexural strength, and the addition of reflective powder (RP) partially weakens the mechanical strength of self-luminous cement-based materials (SLCBM) with a reduction of 30.75% and 40.07% at 28 d. The hydrolytic properties of red LP will lead to deep chromaticity attenuation of red SLCBM samples. Additionally, this study puts forward a reasonable method to evaluate the driving comfort of different color self-luminous pavement and quantitatively analyzes the pupil changes of drivers based on the eye movement test of human–computer interaction. The experimental results show that, due to the significant visual contrast between the yellow-green self-luminous road and target obstacles and the brightness enhancement function of the luminous road, the driving safety distance and visual comfort of the drivers on the yellow-green self-luminous road are the longest and optimum, respectively.