A NOVEL QUARTZ WIM SENSOR

A novel sensor for the dynamic weighing of axles of road vehicles (WIM - Weigh-In-Motion) and a suitable road installation technology have been developed and tested. The new sensor uses piezoelectric quartz crystals as force measuring elements. As optimized installation material a sand epoxy mixture was utilized. The dependence of the sensor performance on speed, vehicle type, climatic conditions and its variation with time were examined. An almost complete decoupling of the sensors from lateral forces in the road was found to be essential to obtain good signal pulse shapes and reproducible results. On a public road almost 1000 different vehicles were weighed and compared to their static weights. (A) For the covering abstract see IRRD 871202.