Strategy for the maintenance and monitoring of electric road infrastructures based on recursive lifetime prediction

Wireless charging is an attractive technology that is expected to promote customer acceptance of electric vehicles since it can improve convenience and sustainability. The dynamic properties and the long-term structural behavior of these particular infrastructures call for in depth investigations, to define specific requirements for the installation of the system, as well as for its maintenance, lifecycle analysis and monitoring. Currently, several Technologies exist that integrate dynamic inductive charging systems within the infrastructure, ranging from rails with box-section to buried solutions. A wide-range discussion is provided on how to assess the structural performance of electric roads (e-roads), including numerical strategies for the estimation of their lifetime. Structural health monitoring (SHM) strategies for e-roads will be then outlined. Indeed, a SHM strategy integrated with lifecycle management is essential to calibrate structural assessment and prediction, to optimize the maintenance of infrastructure and, possibly, to operate infrastructure systems Beyond their original design life. Finally, results of simulations are presented for the e-road solution.