Piezoelectric energy harvesting in pavement is an advanced energy saving technology. It is carried out by laying the piezoelectric material in the pavement structure and converting the mechanical energy into electrical energy. The current energy harvester has difficulty meeting the complex requirements of pavements. In order to develop the pavement piezoelectric energy harvesting technology, in this paper, a stacked mode for a piezoelectric energy harvester is designed. The computer-controlled pressure testing machine (WHY-2000, Shanghai Hualong Test Instruments Corporation, Shanghai, China) was used to test the compressive property and the one–third-scaled accelerated instrument Model Mobile Load Simulator (MMLS-1/3) was used to test the fatigue properties of the piezoelectric transducer. Results showed that the designed piezoelectric transducer could bear loadings up to 150 kN, which can meet road traffic loading requirements. The piezoelectric properties of the transducer remain good after 100,000 cyclic loadings. The indoor laboratory test and the on-site test show that the piezoelectric transducer can work in real pavement in actual traffic conditions. The open circuit voltage can reach 280 V, which can provide enough electricity for sensing systems in the pavements. In all, the proposed new piezoelectric transducer provides a promising future for green energy use in the pavement industry.

In order to control the adverse effect of vehicles overloading infrastructure and traffic safety, weight-in-motion (WIM)-related research has drawn growing attention. To address the high cost of current piezoelectric sensors in installation and maintenance, a study on developing a low-cost piezoceramic sensing system is presented in this paper. The proposed system features distributed monitoring and integrated packaging, for calculating vehicle’s dynamic load and its wheel position. Results from the laboratory tests show that the total output of the sensing system increases linearly with the increase of the peak load when the loading amplitude is 5–25 kN (equivalent to the half-axis load of 20–100 kN); when the loading frequency is between 15 Hz and 19 Hz (equivalent to a speed of 17.8–23.2 km/h), the total output of the system fluctuates around a value of 1.305 V. Combined with finite-element simulation, the system can locate load lateral position with a resolution of 120 mm. Due to the protection packaging, the peak load transferred to the sensing units is approximately 4.36% of the applied peak load. The study indicates the proposed system can provide a promising low-cost, reliable and practical alternative for current WIM systems.

In this study, we devised a promising method to harvest the clean power from vehicle vibrations. We tested the electrical response of stacked piezoelectric units at different temperatures and loadings by using indoor laboratory tests. It is also discovered that ambient temperature has a great influence on the piezoelectric power generation. The generated electric energy of piezoelectric unit increased with increase in the loading and their relationship follow the cubic polynomial. It is demonstrated that there is a linear correlation between the open-circuit voltage and the amount of charge generated of the piezoelectric unit. The output energy increases with an increase in the frequency and the load.