Thermal Energy Harvesting system to harvest thermal energy across pavement Structure

Aging infrastructure requires a proactive strategy to ensure its functionality and performance. Innovative sensors are needed to develop infrastructures that are intelligent and durable. 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 that can be installed on the surface of pavements. The system will collect energy from the temperature difference between the pavement surface and the subgrade soil. The electronic circuit was designed to manage the voltage and power output, and store the energy for long-term monitoring applications. Experiments evaluated the performance of the system with encouraging results. This paper presents an innovative strategy for power supply in long-term monitoring of pavement performance.