TITLE:
Experimental and Simulation Validation of Piezoelectric Road Energy Harvesting
AUTHORS:
Andrew Sherren, Kyle Fink, Joshua Eshelman, Luay Yassin Taha, Sohail Anwar, Craig Brennecke, Hussein M. Abdeltawab, Shihui Shen, Faeze Ghofrani, Cheng Zhang
KEYWORDS:
Energy Harvesting, Piezoelectric Harvesters, Road Pavement, Device Modelling
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Energy Efficiency,
Vol.11 No.3,
September
26,
2022
ABSTRACT: This project strived to develop a prototype road piezoelectric energy
harvester RPEH system using five Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) PZT 5H modules (stacks) that are
embedded in the road by means of a housing unit to harvest energy from vehicles
stressing the modules. The work is an extension of our previous published work
in the same journal. The design considered many factors to optimize the
harvested energy. The proposed system first captures mechanical energy using a
designed module that transfers the energy to the piezoelectric stacks. Then the
captured energy will be converted into electrical energy by the piezoelectric
phenomenon. The harvested energy is stored in a storage device, then analyzed
by an oscilloscope through the acquisition of the harvested voltage, current,
power, and energy. When testing the RPEH with the wheel tracking machine, varying
resistor loads where connected to the output of the RPEH to
address the optimum power delivered to the load. The optimum load was found to
be 950 kΩ, and the optimal harvested energy was recorded as 45 uJ.