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

Among the arising technologies for electric mobility, the on-the-road (dynamic) vehicle charging appears to be a promising solution in order to overcome the current limitations of the electric vehicles’ batteries. For achieving this purpose, the use of Charging Units (CUs) embedded into the road pavements is needed. These CU are made of a cement concrete box in which the electric technologies are allocated. However, the CUs have not to be detrimental for the structural behavior of the pavements, including their load resistance performances. The lack of scientific studies in the available literature demonstrate that the topic is not fully investigated. Moreover, the available scientific papers assume the CU as a solid, not considering it as a box (having a void for the electric technologies). However, it is a key factor for the pavements’ structural response. This is the reason why this research was devoted to assess the structural response of electrified roads (e-roads), in which the CUs are embedded, compared to the traditional roads (t-roads), using a Finite Element Modelling (FEM) approach. Therefore, the main scope of this study is the optimization of the void dimensions into CU from a pavement structural performances point of view. The optimization included different cross-sectional geometries and load positions. As a result of these FEM investigations, a first set of interesting outcomes were obtained, as shown and discussed in the paper.