Estudo sobre o uso de smartphones na estimativa do índice de irregularidade longitudinal dos pavimentos.

Abstract

The paving of vehicle roads has the primary function of improving the traffic and experience during the use of the same by its users. However, with the passing of its lifespan, the pavement undergoes a progressive degradation due to the weather and traffic performance, which, associated with the lack of effective management of the pavement quality, leads to an increased number of roads in bad conditions, a common scenario of Brazilian highways. In order to identify means to make the evaluation of the pavement roughness an efficient, practical and low cost process, the present work consists of the evaluation of smartphones as a potential tool in the determination of the international roughness index (IRI). The analysis was carried out by measuring the international roughness index of two stretches of 100 meters of the CE-356 and CE-377 highways using the Rod and Level method. These initial IRI measurements were used as reference values, in order to be correlated with the root mean square vertical acceleration (RMSVA) values, a parameter related to the pavement roughness and that measures the vehicle vertical movements. This parameter is determined through vertical acceleration signals captured by a smartphone fixed to the dashboard of a vehicle that travelled those same stretches of the Rod and Level system. The correlation results, through Pearson’s coefficients (R), for the stretch of CE-377 (R=0.78) and CE-356 (R=0.40) showed that despite the need of a calibration system, smartphones are presented as a viable alternative, of low cost and of great potential in a pavement management system.