Test and Analysis of Vibration Characteristic for Asphalt Pavement Energy Harvesting

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the vibration characteristic of asphalt pavement with various structures for harvesting mechanical energy via finite element analysis (FEA) and analytic model. Part of energies in asphalt pavement caused by mechanical vibration can be harvested by piezoelectric transducers. In order to get more energy from pavement, the sensitivity of structure parameters such as thickness, modulus, mass and stiffness are analyzed by using semi-rigid asphalt pavement as an example. Finite element model and analytic model are established in the analysis, which are calibrated by field measurement and laboratory test. The results show that the vibration frequency of typical semi-rigid asphalt pavement is between 10 Hz and 20 Hz, which is far lower than frequency of typical piezoelectric transducers. The fundamental frequency of asphalt pavement decreases with increasing thickness and mass of surface, base and subbase. However, the fundamental frequency is increase with the modulus and stiffness of subgrade, the increment is about 23 Hz/10 MPa and 0.7 Hz/10⁶ (N/m).