Integrated Monitoring of Seasonal Variations and Structural Responses to Enable Intelligent Asset Management of Road Infrastructures

In 2017, Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency (FTIA) launched an open testing ecosystem of intelligent transport and infrastructure solutions, Aurora. The Aurora test area consists of a 10 km section of main highway E8 South from the village of Muonio in the Western part of Finnish Lapland. Regarding the road infrastructure a key element of the testing ecosystem consists of two extensively instrumented road sections, one of which is located on stiff subgrade soil area and the other one on a softer subgrade soil. Commissioned by FTIA the structural instrumentation of Aurora monitoring sections was accomplished jointly by Tampere University (TAU) and Roadscanners Ltd (RS). This paper exemplifies the integrated analysis of continuous monitoring results regarding both structural condition and structural responses at the Aurora test sites during the first year of monitoring. Special attention is devoted to five follow-up periods lasting one week each. These weeks represent different seasons typical for the Nordic conditions: early and late spring thaw, dry summer period, early phase of seasonal frost and further advanced freezing period. The results presented in this paper have two unique features: (1) both of the monitoring sites operate fully remote-controlled i.e., all the presented data has been acquired without anyone attending on the monitoring sites and (2) all the data to be collected during a period of almost three years from 2018 to 2020 will be made publicly available via the FTIA website as open data.