Investigating the Effect of Prestress Force on Cross-Tensioned Concrete Pavement Vibration

Prestress force loss is crucial to the structural performance of cross-tensioned concrete pavement (CTCP). Severe loss in prestress force will reduce the constricting-cracking capacity of the CTCP, resulting in damage with load and temperature applied. Vibration-based methods are commonly used in prestress force monitoring, but few relative studies are reported into CTCP and the relationship between prestress force and CTCP vibration is still unclear. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of prestress force on CTCP vibration. The vibration characteristics of CTCP subjected to different prestress forces were studied through field testing and finite element (FE) analysis. Impulse load was applied as excitation at the anchorage zone and dynamic responses were measured in the time domain. A signal processing method was employed to obtain short-time power spectral from original vibration signals, which was utilized to extract vibration characteristics in time and frequency. As shown in both the field testing and the FE analysis, the prestress force has a more significant effect on frequency spectral distribution, rather than the dominant frequency. Integrated frequency is proved to be a reliable index for describing frequency spectral distribution and has a good correlation with prestress force, which suggests it can be used to reflect the change in prestress force. Overall, these findings indicate that vibration testing has potential in prestress force monitoring in CTCP, though the practicality of this method requires further demonstration.