Abstract:
In this era of increasing energy costs and decreasing supplies of fossil fuels, emphasis on protecting the environment and creating sustainable forms of power have
become vital and high priority projects for modern society. It is imperative that clean, renewable sources of energy be put into practice if we are to wean ourselves off of more
traditional sources of power such as fossil fuels. The process of acquiring the energy surrounding a system and converting it into
usable Electrical energy is termed power harvesting. With piezoelectric materials, it is
possible to harvest power from vibrating structures. This project targets the
transformation of mechanical vibration into electrical energy using piezoelectric
material. Highways in the Pakistan are vital transportation hubs that will greatly benefit from
new energy technologies. Lower costs along with cleaner day-to-day operations from
green forms of energy will allow roads in the Pakistan to operate more efficiently and
effectively. Contained within this report is a comprehensive design and analysis of a new
product: a piezoelectric based energy scavenging road that harvests energy from the
stress applied by the vehicles. When a vehicle passes over a road, the road deflects
vertically downward. For a road with embedded piezoelectric generators, part of the
energy the vehicle imparts on roads deformation is transformed into electric energy (via
direct piezoelectric effect) instead of being wasted. The proposed work in this research recommends Piezoelectricity as an alternate
energy source. This report includes the development, implementation, and tests
conducted in the design of the prototype of the energy scavenging road. The group was
successfully able to harvest enough energy using piezoelectric materials in the pavement
to power 6 LEDs through rechargeable battery
