Road energy harvesting characteristics of damage-resistant stacked piezoelectric ceramics

A circular piezoelectric pavement energy acquisition device for road was designed by using the stack mechanism on a piezoelectric ceramic unit. Two different orientations of piezoelectric transducers were compared according to the pavement construction mode, and their conversion performance was evaluated based on the traffic load model. The performance of the transducer was analysed from two aspects, electromechanical conversion effect and structural durability, and its working efficiency was determined. Under a force of 5000 N and loading frequency of 10 Hz, the effective current of the "9-units" transducer was 3 mA, maximum output power was 18.566 mW, and corresponding optimal load was 7 kΩ. The cyclic loading and performance testing of laminated piezoelectric ceramic units demonstrated a voltage between 8 and 12 V under 5000 N and 10 Hz, and the voltage decreased by approximately 2.8% and 9% at loading cycles of 30,000 and 60,000, respectively. The static capacitance remained at approximately 1.1 µF. In addition, among the rubber pads of different materials used as protection for the piezoelectric device, fluorine rubber pad was found to be the most suitable. Compared with the traditional PZT devices, the piezoelectric devices designed for this study show better pavement power generation performance, fatigue resistance, and practical feasibility.