Filippo Praticò

Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria | UNIRC

Road performance (e.g., rolling resistance, friction, noise, and hydroplaning) is affected by surface macrotexture. The characteristics above need to be controlled and predicted at the design stage because of the consequences on sustainability and safety. However, macrotexture is quite difficult to govern when designing a mixture and this fact pose...

High–speed railways (HSRs or AV) and high–capacity railways (HCRs or AC, herein in the sense of open to freight trains) are crucial for the social and economic development of regions and nations. Their design, construction, and maintenance should comply with many requirements, including environment–, finance–, and policy–related ones. To this end,...

In both the current and foreseen context of significant development of the electric vehicle (EV) fleet, a future increasing ratio of EVs in the urban traffic is expected, still enhanced in low-emission zones involving bans or restricted access to other vehicles. EVs are known to be quieter than conventional vehicles at low speed because of a low mo...

Asphalt pavements are subject to deterioration due to numerous factors such as traffic, temperature, rains, climatic change, and aging. This affects the expected life and the corresponding life cycle costing. Despite the fact that bituminous mixtures containing graphene can yield higher performance, there are still many uncertainties. These latter...

Flexible road pavements are damaged by traffic and environmental conditions. At the same time, traditional structural health assessment and monitoring methods are often destructive and expensive. Consequently, the main objective of this study is to further develop innovative non-destructive structural health monitoring method for road pavements, wh...

Traffic noise can cause various problems to human health in both the short and long term. One of the main causes of traffic noise is tire-road interaction. Low-noise mixtures containing end-of-life tire crumb rubber (ELT-CR) can be a possible solution. In the ongoing project “SNEAK” (optimized Surfaces against NoisE And vibrations produced by tramw...

Especially in urban contexts, the detection of damages in road infrastructures is crucial for their management and efficiency. This entails complex measurement chains. Several solutions were already developed and applied (e.g., high speed monitoring systems or sensor‐based systems), but the emerging smart city and smart road paradigms call for inno...

Despite almost a century of studies dealing with traffic noise, researchers and practitioners still face old and new issues when designing a low-noise pavement. Given that, this manuscript aims at focusing on a number of unsolved questions, namely theoretical or technological. 1) Is it viable to balance diverse road-related needs (i.e., noise, expe...

A solar road is a pavement infrastructure able to generate electricity exploiting the solar radiation. Notwithstanding the progress of the research, several issues still hinder these typologies from getting an outstanding role, among which their uncertain durability, surface performance, and permeability. In the light of this, a novel permeable and...

This paper proposes a system based on Neural Networks (NN), designed for providing an efficient, non-invasive and automated method for monitoring the health status of road pavements by using features derived from Tyre Cavity Noise (TCN) analysis. Indeed, visual inspection remains to date the most common choice for evaluating the condition of road p...

The theoretical background, standards, and contract requirements of pavement friction courses involve functional (e.g., permeability) and acoustic (e.g., resistivity) characteristics. Unfortunately, their relationship is partly unknown and uncertain. This affects the comprehensiveness and soundness of the mix design of asphalt pavements. Based on t...

In recent decades, road infrastructures have been the subject of numerous studies, aimed at ensuring reduced air and acoustic pollution. On the other hand, several studies showed that another important problem is dust load. Indeed, for internal combustion engine (ICEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs), suspended solids, fine particles, heavy metals, nu...

Electric vehicles (EVs) are progressively entering into the current noisy urban ecosystem. Even though EVs are apparently quieter than traditional Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles (ICEVs), they have an impact on noise maps and road pavement designers should take this into consideration when designing future low-noise road pavements. Consequently...

The paper deals with the acoustical characterization of low-noise asphalt concretes developed for noise reduction in urban areas within the LIFE E-VIA project (LIFE18 ENV/IT/000201). With the perspective of an increasing number of electric vehicles (EVs) in urban area, the asphalt concrete mixes have been optimized considering Life Cycle Cost with...

In both the current and foreseen context of significant development of the electric vehicle (EV) fleet, a future increasing ratio of EVs in the urban traffic is expected, still enhanced in low-emission zones involving bans or restricted access to other vehicles. EVs are known to be quieter than conventional vehicles at low speed because of a low mo...

The sound absorption of a road pavement depends not only on geometric and volumetric factors but also on pore shape factors. In turn, pore shape factors mainly refer to thermal and viscous factors (i.e., thermal and viscous effects that usually occur inside porous materials). Despite the presence of a number of studies and researches, there is a la...

This paper proposes a system based on Neural Networks (NN), designed for the purpose of providing an efficient, non-invasive and automated response for monitoring the health status of road pavements by using Tyre Cavity Noise (TCN) features. Indeed, visual inspection remains to date the most commonly used method for evaluating the condition of road...

Traffic and tyre/road noise affect human health. In order to mitigate the tyre/road noise, the knowledge of the frequency-based mechanics of pavements (e.g., pavement Frequency Response Functions, FRF) could be a crucial factor, because the remaining factors have been investigated in depth. Consequently, the main objective of this study was to inve...

In the last decades, noise pollution has become a criticality, especially in residential areas. In more detail, the traffic noise produced by the interaction between tire and road surface (rolling noise) represents one of the main sources of urban noise. Tire characteristics (type/construction, size, belt stiffness, tire damping, non-uniformity, ru...

The predictive monitoring and maintenance of future transportation infra-structures will be based on intelligent technologies, such as smart wireless sensing devices. In order to efficiently manage the delivery of crucial information about the structural and environmental conditions detected by wireless sensing nodes, and to suddenly process or exc...

Transportation infrastructures can benefit from structural health monitoring in terms of pavement management systems and risk management. Pavement cracks, both visible and concealed, impact road agency budget but unfortunately there is lack of nondestructive methods to assess them. Consequently, the objectives were confined into setting up and impr...

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September 2015. It addresses people, planet and prosperity needs and particularly focuses on transport systems that must be 1) Sustainable. 2) Quality and resilient. 3) Safe. 4) Affordable and accessible. The Research Project PRIN USR3...

The expected life of an asphalt road pavement depends on many factors (fatigue cracking, thermal cracking, etc). Bottom-up cracking is a common mode of hot mix asphalt pavement distress and appears to be critical. In view of this, the objectives of the study presented in this paper were confined into setting up an innovative and non-destructive met...

Catastrophic and accidental natural events (e.g., earthquakes, sudden floods, fires, etc.) and deficiencies in appropriate management activities require proper plans for disaster management and real-time definition of safe paths and escape routes. Emergencies can affect the structural health status of structures and infrastructures and, consequentl...

The diffusion of smart infrastructures for smart cities provides new opportunities for the improvement of both road infrastructure monitoring and maintenance management. Often pavement management is based on the periodic assessment of the elastic modulus of the bound layers (i.e., asphalt concrete layers) by means of traditional systems, such as Gr...

Noise pollution has become an important issue. One of the main sources of noise in residential areas is represented by transportation and by the interaction between tyre and road surface. Several studies illustrate that traffic noise is affected by road properties such as acoustic absorption, surface texture, and mechanical impedance. This latter,...

Air pollution is an important issue worldwide. Solid components in air (particulate matter, PM) originate from a variety of natural or anthropogenic sources and have different morphological, physical, and chemical properties. Their presence in the air also depends on meteorological conditions, such as humidity, rainfall, and wind speed. PM pollutio...

The aggregate gradation of bituminous mixtures (hot mix asphalts, HMA) is one of the major factors affecting their surface texture. In turn, this latter is a crucial factor and influences drivers and bystanders’ safety, comfort, and health. Despite this, the design of texture levels still lacks sound bases and dedicated algorithms and this negative...

Electric vehicles (EV) diffusion depends on many factors among which policies, people options, and economic factors. Their noise-related performance could appear favourable. This notwithstanding, despite partisan opinions, the analyses carried out suggest that research and industry will have to minimise the collateral issues posed by a quite probab...

Expected and unexpected events affect road infrastructure leading to several issues that require maintenance interventions or prompt actions. In order to face the issues mentioned above, specially designed platforms can be used. Despite the high number of solutions presented in the last decades, it is difficult to find real applications of systems...

Future smart cities that will exploit the forthcoming fifth-generation (5G) network will strongly contribute to the development of intelligent transport systems, which will be able to effectively manage changing infrastructural conditions, and to timely exchange crucial information with different stakeholders to improve sustainability and safety. T...

Smart cities need roads with high levels of sustainability. This goal can be reached using different approaches, such as smart materials, Non-Destructive Test (NDT)-based monitoring systems, and Finite Element Method (FEM)-based damage prediction models. The pieces of information provided using the above-mentioned approaches play a crucial role in...

The current methods that aim at monitoring the structural health status (SHS) of road pavements allow detecting surface defects and failures. This notwithstanding, there is a lack of methods and systems that are able to identify concealed cracks (particularly, bottom-up cracks) and monitor their growth over time. For this reason, the objective of t...

Specifications limits and tolerances are crucial in the relationships among contractor, road agency, and citizens because they influence profits, acceptance procedures, and pavement durability. They mainly depend on processes involved, and, unfortunately, their relationship with durability is mainly empirical and calls for further investigation. In...

Quiet pavement technologies (e.g., Porous asphalt concretes, asphalt rubberised mixtures) have mechanistic, volumetric and surface properties (such as drainability, texture, friction and acoustic performance) that decay over time. This complex phenomenon depends on many variables and involves many processes that finally affect safety, quietness, an...

Recycled and low-temperature materials are promising solutions to reduce the environmental burden deriving from hot mix asphalts. Despite this, there is lack of studies focusing on the assessment of the life-cycle impacts of these promising technologies. Consequently, this study deals with the life cycle assessment (LCA) of different classes of pav...

The increasing sensibility towards the questions related to climate change has made the scientists and technicians aware of the need to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into the road construction sector. In this view, recycled materials in road pavements and technologies to decrease the overall carbon footprint have become more...

Innovative technologies and materials can develop the goals stated in the UN resolution A/RES/70/1. To be more precise, low-noise road pavements (for example Porous asphalt concretes, asphalt rubberised mixture, and texture-optimised pavements) have volumetric, surface (such as drainability, texture, friction and acoustic performance), and mechanis...

Natural disasters and the poor management of civil engineering structures and infrastructures require timely action and new tools such as specially designed structural health monitoring platforms. This paper proposes an innovative platform based on a network of wirelessly connected, low-power, and renewable-energy-fed sensor units. The platform is...

Pavement texture influences safety, human health, agency, user, and environmental costs. Based on the literature, the relationship between mix composition and surface texture is uncertain. This implies that the design of the main surface characteristics of friction courses (e.g., noise-related properties, permeability, friction in wet conditions, a...

Porous asphalts have supplementary surface properties (e.g., acoustic absorption). Despite the decay of so many and complex properties over time, there is a lack of criteria to synergistically optimize the pavement system. Consequently, the objective of this study is to set up and validate a design method that synergistically addresses the most re...

Transportation systems are gradually changing. Innovative solutions are provided by automotive industries, construction firms, computer-aided pavement management systems, sensor-based structural health monitoring (SHM) systems, and international regulations. This calls for efforts and studies aiming at finding a trade-off between the ever-growing r...

Traffic produces vibrations and noise that affect the livability and the structural integrity of the built environment. Despite the fact that many studies focused on traffic-induced vibrations and noise, there is a lack of studies linking the vibrations propagating into the road pavement and the related acoustic response (or acoustic signature) as...

Climate change calls for significant actions and methods. In this context, EU Green Public Procurement Crite-ria for Road Design, Construction and Maintenance, green products, and EU Environmental Product Declara-tions aim at providing experts and scientists with a new framework. Unfortunately, many classes of impact must be considered and this cal...

Structural health monitoring can benefit transportation infrastructures in terms of pavement management systems and risk management. In this study, a new, non-destructive, acoustic-based method for assessing and monitoring the structural health status (SHS) of road pavements along their operational life is presented. In order to validate the propos...

Wavelet-based methods for structural health monitoring (SHM) of structures are an essential tool for signal analysis capable of detecting signal changes associated with faults or malfunctions. Although they are among the most suitable tools for signal singularities identification, their success strictly depends on the Mother Wavelet (MW) chosen dur...

Porous asphalt concretes have outstanding properties in terms of drainability (D), macro-texture (MTD), and friction (PTV). Lower specification limits are usually 8-18 l/min (D), 0.8-1 mm (MTD), and 45 (PTV). Unfortunately, surface properties decay over time, which impacts safety and quietness. This implies consequences and criticalities in terms o...

The use of non-destructive techniques (NDT) for structural health monitoring (SHM) of civil infrastructures is crucial especially for those structures, like buildings and roads, that need efficient and reliable emergency management systems. For this reason, this study aims at designing and validating a new sensor-based NDT platform for SHM, emergen...

The current methods that aim at monitoring the structural health status of road pavements allow detecting surface defects and failures. This notwithstanding there is a lack in methods and systems that are able to identify concealed cracks (particularly, interlayer cracks) and monitor their growth over time. For this reason, the objective of this st...

Crumb Rubber (CR) can be incorporated into asphalt mixes via the dry process by directly adding CR into the mixer together with other asphalt mixture’s components, or with the wet process where the CR is used as a bitumen modifier. While the wet process allows an accurate monitoring of the interaction between CR and bitumen, the lack of control rep...

Porous asphalt concretes have outstanding properties in terms of drainability (D), macro-texture (MTD), and friction (PTV). Lower specification limits are usually 8-18 l/min (D), 0.8-1 mm (MTD), and 45 (PTV). Unfortunately, surface properties decay over time, which impacts safety and quietness. This implies consequences and criticalities in terms o...

In the past, lowest price was the award criterion, given that structural capacity and safety were assured. In the last years, environmental, energy, and long-term impacts have been introduced (climate change, resource depletion, energy consumption, generated solid waste, discharged water, and emissions). Unfortunately, the introduction of new pavem...

Aggregates make up around 95% of the total mass of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA). Therefore, aggregates quality has been recognized as a key parameter for enhancing HMA per-formance under traffic loadings. In particular, the Superpave-SHRP mixture design specifica-tions recommend to investigate on the Fine Aggregate Angularity (FAA), as a function of the E...

Transportation systems are gradually changing. Innovative solutions are provided by automotive industries, construction firms, computer-aided pavement management systems, sensor-based structural health monitoring (SHM) systems, and international regulations. This calls for efforts and studies aiming at finding a trade-off between the ever-growing r...

Internet of Things (IoT) solutions guarantee the high performance requested by users and authorities in terms of efficiency, sustainability, connectivity, and durability for modern transportation infrastructures, allowing, at the same time, small size, low power consumption, wireless transmission and easily deployable solutions. IoT monitoring syst...

ABSTRACT. As is well known, solar pavements are gaining more and more relevance in civil engineering due to their potential in terms of energy harvesting. This notwithstanding, several issues still hinder these typologies from getting an outstanding role, among which their uncertain durability, their surface performance (friction, drainability, tex...

The increase in train speed and axle load is an important goal to achieve in the future. From a technical standpoint, ballastless tracks seem to be suitable to the aim, especially when high-speed passenger trains share the track with freight trains. Based on the above, the primary objective of this study is the comparison between ballasted and slab...

The need for climate change mitigation calls for significant actions to match the sustainable development goals and, in this context, road construction and management play a relevant role (cf. EU Green Public Procurement Criteria for Road Design, Construction and Maintenance and Environmental Product Declarations - EPD). In such a context, the role...

Road safety builds on traffic and driver-infrastructure interaction: nighttime visibility represents a key-aspect of this complex interaction. Therefore, providing an adequate road lighting system and improving drivers' visibility in nighttime conditions is vital. In this sense, photoluminescent paints for pavements can improve road safety in terms...

This paper shows the results of an experimental study concerning the effect of introduction of basalt fibres in asphalt mixtures for surface course, mainly with regard to those to be used in urban areas, for dedicated bus lanes. Surface layers, where tire-pavement interactions occur, have to provide different properties such as high friction (very...

Background As is well known, in road construction, quality acceptance procedures and quality assurance/control procedures during operations (for maintenance and rehabilitation purposes) focus on material quality from a mechanistic and safety perspective. This latter usually entails the consideration of friction and surface texture indicators. When...

The performance of railway tracks can be assessed by separately applying different approaches, such as reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety (RAMS) and lifecycle costing (LCC). Results of these approaches are not comprehensive because RAMS management lacks an LCC perspective and balance, whereas LCC develops an economic analysis bu...

The performance of railway tracks can be assessed by separately applying different approaches, such as reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety (RAMS) and lifecycle costing (LCC). Results of these approaches are not comprehensive because RAMS management lacks an LCC perspective and balance, whereas LCC develops an economic analysis bu...

As is well known, solar pavements are gaining more and more relevance in civil engineering due to their potential in terms of energy harvesting. This notwithstanding, several issues still hinder these typologies from getting an outstanding role, among which their uncertain durability, their surface performance (friction, drainability, texture). In...

This paper deals with transportation infrastructures. It focuses on the estimate of benefits and costs (agency, user and environmental externalities) deriving from the application of the following main concepts (dilemmas): (i) transition towards pervious pavements, (ii) ‘hyper-’monitoring tendency (continuous monitoring of pavement structural condi...

In this paper a RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) – LCCA (Life Cycle Cost Analysis) mixed approach is proposed in order to support decisions on design and maintenance strategies of rail tracks. RAMS management, usually applied in railway sector, lacks a life-cycle cost perspective and balance, while LCCA supports decisions o...

Road safety is one of the major problems which affect our society. Skid resistance mainly depends on a pavement surface microtexture and macrotexture. Macrotexture can be easily measured on site through the Sand Patch method (mean texture depth, MTD, UNI EN 13036-1, ASTM E 965, CNR B.U. 94/83). Carrying out the measurements above on the samples, in...