Guided and Unguided Transport Infrastructure

CityVal Reference Track

Instrumentation avancée & Internet des Objets

This pilot site is the focus of various research and development activities addressing energy and instrumentation issues. Equipped with a CityVal automated metro track structure developed by Siemens, the site is intended to host the next pilot demonstrators of the R5G@Nantes project, with a focus on energy-related and climate solutions.

Hybrid Solar Road (MAST-COSYS)

This project led to a COP21 demonstrator, presented by Alain Vidalies at the France Pavilion. It combines photovoltaic energy harvesting through a recycled glass layer with the recovery of heat from a fluid circulating within the road surface, thereby improving PV efficiency. An ongoing PhD thesis aims to develop a detailed model of the system and optimize its performance. More advanced alternative concepts will also be proposed. The IFSTTAR COP program includes a 50-meter hybrid solar road section as a key demonstrator.

5G for Railways

The new dynamic optical interrogator will be deployed on a section of NBT concrete railway track between Gisors and Cerqueux, with the aim of obtaining initial on-site feedback on the NBT ballastless track system. In collaboration with MAST, the NBT UHPC slab will be optimized and tested using REVE on the Sisyphe test facility. Monitoring of safety-critical railway equipment: As part of the DEMETER fixed-price project with SNCF Réseau, currently being extended into a LabCom, the objective is to make highly critical railway components connected and intelligent, including axle counters, level crossings, and point machines.

Infrastructure Safety

As part of the SIPRIS project:

The potential of optical fibers for crack detection has been identified..

Two VIPP beams were instrumented using continuous optical fibers (CFO) on the Varèze Bridge on the A7 motorway, with monitoring carried out before and after the addition of external prestressing. The objective was to assess, in situ, the suitability of continuous optical fibers—either embedded in the concrete core or bonded to the surface—for the early detection and localization of cracks, with a view to continuous or periodic monitoring of concrete civil engineering structures and other infrastructure. This full-scale test followed prestressed beam tests carried out at the Darcy site in 2014, which had demonstrated the relevance of the method for detecting cracks in prestressed bridges through spatially continuous strain measurements.