Thermal Energy Harvesting Across Pavement Structure

The aging infrastructure requires a proactive strategy to ensure their functionality and performance. Innovative sensors are needed to develop infrastructures that are intelligent and adaptive. A power supply strategy is among the crucial components to reduce the instrument cost and to ensure the long term function of these embedded sensors. This paper describes the design of an energy harvest system to be installed on the surface of pavements. The system will collect energy from the temperature difference between the pavement surface and the sub grade soil. Computer simulations were conducted to optimize the system design. The electronic circuit was designed to manage and store the energy in long term monitoring applications. This presents an innovative strategy for long term monitoring of pavement performance.