Modeling on piezoelectric energy harvesting from pavements under traffic loads

Piezoelectric energy harvesting from deformation in pavements caused by moving vehicles is investigated in this work. The behavior of pavement is described by a plate resting on a Winkler foundation. Two types of moving distributed loads are considered: single-wheel load and four-wheel load. The loads and the displacement of the pavement are expanded with trigonometric series. Two explicit solutions for the dynamic response of the pavement are then obtained using the Fourier transform and Cauchy’s residue theorem. The voltage and power outputs of a piezoceramic transducer embedded in the pavement are then obtained by the direct piezoelectric effect. Finally, a comprehensive numerical study is conducted to show the effect of the Winkler modulus, the velocity of moving load, the position of moving load, and the position of transducer on the voltage and power outputs. Numerical results show that, compared with a previously studied beam model, the plate model is more suitable for predicting the harvested energy from pavements over soft subgrade.