ESR7 - Smart and Sustainable solutions for road and airport pavements - “SmartEcoPave”

- Project: “SmartEcoPave” – Smart and Sustainable solutions for road and airport pavements
- Host Institution: The University of Nottingham (UNOTT)
- Address: The University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom
- Main Supervisor: Dr.Lo Presti (UNOTT) – Sustainable Engineering
- ESR7 will register for PhD at UNOTT


Objectives
This project conceives the re-thinking of the “old” asphalt pavements, through the incorporation of sustainability concepts and smart technologies.
This will be achieved by:
- Developing asphalt mixtures incorporating a high amount of secondary materials such as reclaimed asphalt and recycled tyre rubber, and lower energy consumption during manufacturing
- Furthermore, the pavement will be equipped with low-cost/High-tech solutions able to harvest energy and/or for cost-effective and pro-active communication with the infrastructure managers
- Allowing optimisation of maintenance operations towards a prolonged infrastructure’s life such as embedding fibre optic systems.
Expected Results
Laboratory test results, sustainability assessment and feasibility study supporting the development of Smart and Sustainable asphalts for road and airport asphalt.
Expected Collaborations
Planned secondment(s) and Training offered: UNOTT will provide expertise with pavement design, sustainable engineering, and energy harvesting concepts, materials. The partnership with strategic partners will provide:
- RMIT University: use of fibre optics to monitor asphalt pavements
- Piezonix: sensor development, electronics
- IFSTTAR and A3IP: pavement instrumentation and wireless communication
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