Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SC2-O014
ROAD PAVEMENT ENERGY HARVESTING DEVICE TO CONVERT
VEHICLES KINETIC ENERGY INTO ELECTRICAL ENERGY
Adelino Ferreira 1,2 , Francisco Duarte 2
1 Universidade de Coimbra, , Portugal. 2 Universidade de Coimbra, CITTA, Department of Civil
Engineering, Portugal.
With the growing need for alternative energy sources, research into energy
harvesting technologies has increased considerably in recent years. The
particular case of energy harvesting on road pavements is a very recent area of
research, with different technologies having been developed in recent years.
However, none of them have presented high conversion efficiencies nor
technical or economic viability.
A new mechanical system to transmit and deliver the mechanical energy
received by the road pavement energy harvesting device surface to an electrical
generator was developed in this research work. The developed system, defined
as a crank to slider system, aims to increase the force applied by the vehicle in
the road pavement energy harvesting device surface, maximizing the energy
delivered by the mechanical system to the electrical generator.
Using a software previously developed by the authors, to simulate the vehicleroad
interaction, computational simulations were performed, in order to obtain
the values of the energy harvested, transmitted, delivered, converted and
consumed by the road pavement energy harvesting device.
From the analysis of the results, it can be concluded that the new mechanical
system presents two times greater efficiency than the rack and pinion and four
times greater efficiency than the lever system for the same simulation scenario.
Its main advantage is an increase in the transmitted force, leading to a higher
mechanical energy transmission, meaning there is a greater acceleration of the
pinion and, consequently, of the inertia wheel and the generator shaft, leading
to a higher rotation speed and a higher amount of energy transmission, delivery
and conversion.
Acknowledgment:
The present research work has been carried out in the framework of project
PAVENERGY – Pavement Energy Harvest Solutions (PTDC/ECM-TRA/3423/2014),