A road energy harvester was designed and fabricated to convert mechanical energy from the vehicle load to electrical energy. The road energy harvester is composed of 24 piezoelectric cantilevers and a vehicle load transfer mechanism. Applying a vehicle load transfer mechanism rather than directly installing energy harvesters under roads decreases the area of road construction and allows more energy harvesters to be installed on the side of the road. The power generation amount with respect to the vehicular velocity change was assessed by installing the vehicle load transfer mechanism and the energy harvester in the form of speed bumps and underground. The energy harvester installed in a speed bump form generated power of 7.61 ㎽at the vehicular velocity of 20 km/h. Also, power generation of the energy harvester installed in the underground form was 63.9 ㎽at the vehicular velocity of 28 km/h. Although the number of piezoelectric cantilevers was reduced by 1/3 to 24 in comparison to the previous research results with 72 piezoelectric cantilevers, similar power generation characteristic value was obtained within the vehicular velocity of 20 km/h by altering the vehicle load transfer mechanism and cantilever vibration method.

Citations

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