University of Texas System

Praveenkumar Pasupathy

Dean P Neikirk

Brian A Korgel

John G Ekerdt

Christian Gilles Claudel

Vincent C Holmberg

Ali Abu Yosef

Sheng Zhang

Brad Leonhardt

Catherine D Shipman

Timothy D Bogart

Aaron Chockla

Jorge Prozzi

Sharon L Wood

A method, system and computer program product for calculating highway and airport pavement deflections. A pavement monitoring system includes a tractor and a semi-trailer, where a rigid horizontal beam is suspended under the semi-trailer. Various sensing elements are attached to the rigid beam, such as laser scanning sensors configured to measure a distance from the laser scanning sensors to the same point on the pavement at two different times, a gyrometer configured to estimate a raw pitch rate, an inertial measurement unit configured to estimate an orientation of the beam and accelerometers configured to measure an acceleration at a same level as corresponding laser scanning sensors. By utilizing these sensing elements, a more accurate pavement deflection is estimated by not relying on indirect measurements. Furthermore, the tractor and semi-trailer of the pavement monitoring system may travel at the velocity of traffic.

Measuring pavement deflections using data from laser scanning sensors as well as from high precision accelerometers and gyrometers

A corrosion detection sensor embedded within a concrete structure. The sensor includes a hermetically sealed resonant circuit that is a resistor-inductor-capacitor (RLC) circuit. The sensor further includes a sacrificial transducer that is inductively or capacitively coupled to the resonant circuit, where the sacrificial transducer is exposed to an environment outside the sensor to monitor corrosion of steel reinforcement in the concrete structure. Additionally, the sensor includes a protective cementitious housing surrounding the resonant circuit and the sacrificial transducer. The sensor further includes a diffusion layer placed over the sacrificial transducer, where the diffusion layer enables a dispersion of a chemical species over the sacrificial transducer. In this manner, a more uniform distribution of the chemical species over the surface of the sacrificial transducer mitigating the localized corrosion is ensured. Furthermore, such a design is less susceptible to false positives.

Corrosion detection sensor embedded within a concrete structure with a diffusion layer placed over the sacrificial transducer

A sensor for detecting one or more materials includes a substrate, a passivation layer formed on the substrate, a self-resonant structure and a high surface area material disposed on the passivation layer. The self-resonant structure includes a planar spiral inductor and a plurality of planar interdigitated capacitor electrodes disposed within the passivation layer. The planar spiral inductor includes an electrically conductive trace formed on the substrate in a planar spiral pattern having at least two turns and an inter-winding space between parallel segments of the electrically conductive trace. The plurality of planar interdigitated capacitor electrodes are electrically connected to the electrically conductive trace of the planar spiral inductor and formed on the substrate within the inter-winding space of at least one outermost turn of the planar spiral inductor. The high surface area material includes a conformal polymer coating to increase a sensitivity to the one or more materials.

Passive wireless self-resonant sensor

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Praveenkumar Pasupathy