IOP PUBLISHING SMART MATERIALS AND STRUCTURES Smart Mater. Struct. 22 (2013) 095024 (9pp) doi:10.1088/0964-1726/22/9/095024 Theoretical analysis of piezoelectric energy harvesting from traffic induced deformation of pavements H J Xiang 1 , J J Wang, Z F Shi and Z W Zhang School of Civil Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, People’s Republic of China E-mail: [email protected] and [email protected] Received 22 March 2013, in final form 1 August 2013 Published 29 August 2013 Online at stacks.iop.org/SMS/22/095024 Abstract The problem of energy harvesting using piezoelectric transducers for pavement system applications is formulated with a focus on moving vehicle excitations. The pavement behavior is described by an infinite Bernoulli–Euler beam subjected to a moving line load and resting on a Winkler foundation. A closed-form dynamic response of the pavement is determined by a Fourier transform and the residue theorem. The voltage and power outputs of the piezoelectric harvester embedded in the pavements are then obtained by the direct piezoelectric effect. A comprehensive parametric study is conducted to show the effect of damping, the Winkler modulus, and the velocity of moving vehicles on the voltage and power output of the piezoelectric harvester. It is found that the output increases sharply when the velocity of the vehicle is close to the so-called critical velocity. (Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal) 1. Introduction Over the past few decades, many roads have been built in China and have seen significant increases in vehicle loadings. There is a strong need to monitor the health of key structures in the traffic system, such as bridges. Traditional power cables or battery replacement are excessively expensive or infeasible in this type of application. Wireless sensor technology, as a new method, has the potential to have a great impact on this field, including reducing the cost, increasing the adaptability of monitoring systems, and increasing the density of data that can be collected from a given structure [1]. However, it still relies on electrochemical batteries as the main power source, thus reducing its usability and performance, so the availability of renewable energy is a key challenge in the realization of wireless structural health monitoring [2]. Fortunately, vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvest- ing can provide a potential permanent power source for sensor systems used in structural health monitoring, which thus has received growing attention over the past decade and is used for several applications [3, 4]. It is beyond 1 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. the scope of this paper to present an exhaustive review of past studies on piezoelectric energy harvesting problems. Only a few studies related to civil infrastructures will be discussed briefly to motivate the problem statement to follow. Actually, energy harvesting from civil infrastructures is a very recent research topic. Elvin et al discussed the feasibility of vibration in civil engineering structures as a source of ambient energy [5]. The energy harvested by a piezoelectric transducer was measured experimentally and computed using a mathematical model. For a 5 cm 3 sensor node (the volume of a typical concrete stone), it is found that only extreme events such as earthquakes can provide sufficient energy to power wireless sensors consisting of modem electronic chips. The results also show that, with current technology, it would be possible to self-power a sensor node with a sensor mass between 100 and 1000 g for a bridge under traffic loads [5]. Recently, several techniques have been applied to improve the harvesters’ properties and offset the environmental effects. These techniques include the optimization of the piezoelectric material, the use of matching networks to increase the power transfer, the exploitation of the properties of nonlinear oscillators, and, most importantly, the tuning of the harvester’s resonant frequency to match the fundamental frequency of 1 0964-1726/13/095024+09$33.00 c 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK & the USA
Theoretical analysis of piezoelectric energy harvesting from traffic induced deformation of pavements
Jun 26, 2023
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