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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SMARTI ETN (European Training Network on Sustainable Multi-functional Automated Resilient Transport Infrastructures.)

Teaser

Summary

In the last two decades, the world is changing very fast in terms of population growth, mobility and business trades creating greater traffic volumes and demand for minimal disruption to users, but also challenges such as climate change and more extreme weather events. At the same time, developments in Intelligent Transport Systems, vehicle design, mobile and wireless communications and sensor technologies continue apace. It is within this environment and in close consultation with key stakeholders, that this consortium fells the need of the re-thinking the transport infrastructures and developed the vision to achieve the paradigm cultural shift to SMARTI: Sustainable Multifunctional Automated and Resilient Transport Infrastructures.

SUSTAINABLE: Designed to last by maximising recycling and minimising environmental, economic and social impacts
MULTI-FUNCTIONAL: Conceived not for transport purposes only and towards optimisation of land use
AUTOMATED: Engineered for pro-active communication towards a more intuitive use and simplified management
RESILIENT: Self-repairing and adaptable to changes due to natural and anthropogenic hazards

SMARTI ETN consortium strongly believes that for this cultural change to happen, a new generation of professionals specifically trained to perform cutting-edge research, and to communicate effectively, is needed. SMARTI ETN has the aim of growing this group of professionals through 15 individual research projects, which allow them to become specialists in that niche, and by providing them with cutting-edge training in each of the pillars of our vision. This platform is allowing the consortium to participate in debates towards the definition of the SMARTI vision while fostering the development of highly-skilled professionals versed in conceiving and exploiting the SMARTI vision. The ETN fellows are in fact the seeds of the SMARTi vision, hence they represent the main outcome of this programme. They will bring the acquired knowledge and a network of excellence to their next professional challenge, for the benefit of Europe and beyond.

Work performed

The first 24 months of SMARTI ETN have been focused on consolidating the network, recruitment of the fellows, training, research activities and dissemination. For SMARTI Prototypes, seven fellows are working in the optimisation of materials, technologies and methodologies as following: oil capsules for self-healing asphalt (ESR1), use of nanosensors in pavement and characterisation (ESR2), semi-transparent layer of asphalt for energy harvesting from sunlight (ESR3), multicriteria decision making model for management of the deterioration of railways embankments (ESR4), energy harvesting systems in railways (ESR5), model of mulit-spam beam under Poissonian loading for bridges (ESR6) and concept of â€œResponsive Asphaltâ€ through the usage of piezoelectric sensors being embedded in trial sections (ESR7). For SMARTI Guidelines, eight fellows are working in the definition of frameworks and methodologies as following: numerical model able to improve the characterisation of complex materials (ESR8), framework to quantitatively assess the resilience of road networks to extreme events (ESR9), framework to combine LCA and LCCA, supported by circular economy in transport infrastructures (ESR10), model to simulate the pavement response close to the load for joints (ESR11), authenticate the accuracy of the digital techniques for pavement distress identification (ESR12), methods of safety assessment for earthworks located along road and rail transportation networks (ESR13), mechanomutable binders for asphalt mixtures (ESR14) and instrumentation of pavements (ESR15).

Four training modules have been delivered: Introduction to transport infrastructures; Communication skills; New horizons in Sustainable Transport Infrastructures, Research and Education; Multifunctional Transport Infrastructures. The Doctoral Studies Panel ensures that the PhD development of the fellows goes in the right direction.

SMARTI ETN website is the main dissemination tool, linked to all social media accounts. Several dissemination items have further been produced which can be downloaded from the website. The 2018 Dissemination Event took place in November in Brussels in collaboration with the Smart Transport Alliance. ESRs have attended to conferences and are publishing their results. In terms of outreach, they attended the Researchers Night in Palermo 2018 and have blogs related to their projects and experience as MSCA Fellows.

Final results

SMARTI ETN is bringing together a stimulating platform where key stakeholders of the transport infrastructure sector are working alongside world-wide experts in smartening of systems (developers of high-tech sensors, advanced monitoring equipment, automated structures, etc.,) with direct support from the roads, railways and airports managers. This environment is enabling the recruited ESRs to conceive the transport infrastructure network of the future and is providing them with world-wide extended and globally-leading training in each of the four pillars supporting the SMARTI vision. ESRs are developing their individual projects and PhD in their respective institutions together with experts in their field. SMARTI researchers will be in great demand in this rapidly expanding field and will be offered a unique opportunity to build their own career and training plan.

In terms of expected results:

WP2 â€“ SMARTI Prototypes allows 7 researchers to carry out research projects aiming at investigating the possibility of developing smart prototypes of infrastructure components for roads, railways and airports, designed to maximise recycling and durability, to enable energy harvesting, to incorporate nano-sensors and low-cost monitoring equipment, to provide infrastructures with smart responses to changes and generally using innovative promising features to create pieces of the complex puzzle of Sustainable Multi-Functional Automated Resilient roads, railways and airports. All the prototypes will be designed so few steps from an implementation and launch by stakeholders. This will maximise the appealing and employability of the fellows. The selected smart road components will be investigated for application in both extra-urban and urban highways; the railway technologies to be applied either on standard railway infrastructure or high-speed railways and airports components will be developed specifically for airport runaways.

WP3 - SMARTI Guidelines allows 8 researchers to carry out research aiming at defining guidelines for the SMARter design, construction and management best practices of transport infrastructures by: creating novel decision-making frameworks incorporating sustainability principles and risk and reliability analysis practices; defining methodologies for simplified asset management to avoid on-site surveys through use of pictures from satellites, drones or mobile-phones and advanced image analysis and processing techniques; and developing technologies concepts such as electronic component, remote communication systems using the internet of things and resilient materials to enable roads, railways and airport evolving from being an â€œinactiveâ€ surface infrastructures to an â€œpro-active and communicativeâ€ combined material and information layer including sensing and intelligence in cooperation with traffic in general and intelligent vehicles in particular.