Designing of high-performance materials for the use in intelligent pedestrian crossings

The paper presents a design of an intelligent pedestrian crossing with the aim to increase the safety of pedestrians when crossing the street on poorly lit areas. The pedestrian is being automatically detected which activate the illumination and thus informing the driver about the presence of pedestrians at the crossing. New and improved technology, obtained from the collaboration of scientific research organization and company, includes the optimization of the design of the polymer material with improved properties related to UV stability, thermal expansion, wear resistance, impact strength, and hardness. Good mechanical properties of the materials are required due to the constant load of everyday traffic, which is of great significance to the supporting structure of the smart system of the pedestrian crossing. The importance of improving UV stability is reflected in the fact that polymers are sensitive to UV radiation of the environment, whereby they can change transparency and thus disturb light signaling. The temperature stability of the material is required due to the maintenance of relatively constant dimensions which would not impair the connection to the asphalt of the street into which it is installed. Epoxy resin and polyurethanes were tested as the polymeric materials that can meet all the requirements. The testing of the obtained polymeric materials was carried out based on the knowledge of the conditions for the exploitation of smart systems for pedestrian crossings, which relate to a static and dynamic load, wear resistance, UV and temperature stability. The influence of commercial and synthetic additives from natural sources, which contributes to the improvement of antioxidative and UV stability, which prolongs the service life of the product, was examined. The use of silica particles as fillers/reinforcement from rice husk contributes to more economic production and sustainability on domestic and especially on the foreign market.