Structural Analysis of Bituminous Road Pavements Embedding Charging Units for Electric Vehicles

Influence of Embedded Charging Units Characteristics on Long-Term Structural Behavior of E-Roads

“…However, according to [1], the distribution of alternative fuel (BEV Battery Electric Vehicle, PHEV Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle, H2 Hydrogen vehicle, LPG Liquified Petroleum Gas, CNG Compressed Natural Gas, LNG Liquified Natural Gas) fleets is lower than 15% of the total, as reported in Figures 1 and 2, for EU-27 during 2021. The main problems related to EV worldwide diffusion are: high initial cost, long charging time, and range anxiety [2,3]. All these obstacles are mainly due to the battery on board.…”

“…A road equipped with a proper electric charging network is called electrified road (e-road). From the available literature, two charging methods are investigated [2,3]: the conductive method (a connection that links the EV with the charging network) and the contactless one (a defined air gap divides EV and the charging network, using for example an inductive coupled power transfer to charge the EV battery). Among the contactless dynamic vehicle charging technologies, the use of Charging Units (CUs)-cement concrete box-embedded into the road pavement seems to be a promising solution, even if the CUs' effects on the structural road pavement performance are not yet fully investigated.…”

“…Among the contactless dynamic vehicle charging technologies, the use of Charging Units (CUs)-cement concrete box-embedded into the road pavement seems to be a promising solution, even if the CUs' effects on the structural road pavement performance are not yet fully investigated. In fact, the available scientific papers consider the CU as a solid box [2,[6][7][8][9], even if, from the electrical point of view, a cavity into the CU is needed for the electrical technologies' accommodation. This is the reason why the research described in this paper is devoted to investigating different CU cavity shapes and dimensions, also considering the long-term effects, particularly related to both fatigue and rutting proneness.…”

“…Void CU_R1: this is the simplest geometry, showing a rectangular cavity (R1), as studied in previous Author's research [2];…”

“…As concerns materials, the main properties of asphalt concrete, cement treated subbase and subgrade are given in [2]. Regarding concrete, three compressive strength classes are considered: C20/25, C30/37, and C40/50, according to [17].…”