Abstract
To realize the goal of harvesting energy from pavement vibration on a large scale, a new type of piezoelectric harvesting units as the energy transducer has been proposed. The piezoelectric harvesting units are paved 40 mm below the asphalt, which is the same as thickness of the top layer of typical asphalt pavement in China. The spacing distance is 2200 mm, which is the same as the one between two tires of a normal vehicle. A mathematical model of the unit is deduced on Meda empirical formula and Hamilton principle and piezoelectric equations. Effects of the external vehicle load on its harvesting energy properties and pavement deformation and stress are analyzed with the finite element method. The results show that the excited voltage is linearly variation with contact pressure while the harvested electrical energy exponential varies with contact pressure. The more the contact pressure is, the larger the harvested electrical energy and the deformation and stress are. The harvested electrical energy also increases with the load frequency. At least 100 mJ of electrical energy can be collected with the proposed piezoelectric harvesting unit. It shows that the technology application of the piezoelectric harvesting energy from pavement is promising.
Highlights
Vibration-based piezoelectric harvesting energy technology has received growing attention over the last decade.How to cite this paper: Sun, C.H., Wang, H.B., Liu, J. and Shang, G.Q. (2015) Finite Element Analysis of Vehicle Load Effect on Harvesting Energy Properties of a Piezoelectric Unit
Effects of structural parameters and the planted depth of the piezoelectric harvester on electromechanical properties and pavement deformation were studied via the finite element method (FEM), a new kind of piezoelectric harvesting unit was proposed [6] [7]
It can be concluded that the excited voltage is linear with the contact pressure
Summary
Vibration-based piezoelectric harvesting energy technology has received growing attention over the last decade. The technology of vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvesting from pavement has attracted more and more attention of academia and industry It will be one important direction of piezoelectric harvesting energy by replacing conventional electricity generation. Effects of structural parameters and the planted depth of the piezoelectric harvester on electromechanical properties and pavement deformation were studied via the finite element method (FEM), a new kind of piezoelectric harvesting unit was proposed [6] [7]. Based on this structure, this paper proposes the road paving ways and builds piezoelectric harvesting energy model under vehicle loads.
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