Citation

Yao YS, Zheng JL, Chen ZS, Zhang JH, Li Y. Sensors (Basel) 2016; 16(6): ePub.

Affiliation

Shenzhen Bridge-Doctor Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd., Shenzhen 518048, China. liy2000@163.com.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/s16060857

PMID

27294935

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic pioneering study on the use of agricultural-purpose frequency domain reflectometry (FDR) sensors to monitor temperature and moisture of a subgrade in highway extension and reconstruction engineering. The principle of agricultural-purpose FDR sensors and the process for embedding this kind of sensors for subgrade engineering purposes are introduced. Based on field measured weather data, a numerical analysis model for temperature and moisture content in the subgrade's soil is built. Comparisons of the temperature and moisture data obtained from numerical simulation and FDR-based measurements are conducted. The results show that: (1) the embedding method and process, data acquisition, and remote transmission presented are reasonable; (2) the temperature and moisture changes are coordinated with the atmospheric environment and they are also in close agreement with numerical calculations; (3) the change laws of both are consistent at positions where the subgrade is compacted uniformly. These results suggest that the data measured by the agricultural-purpose FDR sensors are reliable. The findings of this paper enable a new and effective real-time monitoring method for a subgrade's temperature and moisture changes, and thus broaden the application of agricultural-purpose FDR sensors.

Language: en