Energy Harvesting and Self-powered Monitoring System for the Next Generation Smart Roadways Webinar
- Energy Harvesting and Self-powered Monitoring System for the Next Generation Smart Roadways
- 12/07/2016
Presenter(s)
Samer Dessouky
- Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- University of Texas, San Antonio
Abstract
The proposed technology responds to the urgent call for seeking energy resources and building sustainable roadways infrastructures. Roadways play an important role in connecting communities via commerce and moving people. Financial resources to build and maintain these infrastructures come, for the most part, from fuel taxes. However, with increasing numbers of lane-miles added to support the expansion of the population away from cities, and as vehicles become more fuel efficient, funding for maintenance is becoming scarce and our roadways will, inevitably, continue to deteriorate. Millions of roadway lane miles are subjected to a stream of stresses and strains under solar heat and traffic loading conditions making them great candidates for thermal and mechanical energy harvesting. This wasted energy can be harnessed in the form of electric power. The proposed green technology is a hybrid energy harvesting and sensing system for roadways. The system is built using piezoelectric materials and is placed under the asphalt layer during regularly scheduled repaving. The system is capable of producing continuous low-cost energy. This system is also instrumented with self-powered sensors for monitoring roadway conditions and collecting traffic data.
Speaker Bio(s)
Prof. Dessouky received BSc. from Ain Shams University Egypt in 1996, a MSc. From Washington State University, WA in 2001 and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 2005, all from Civil Engineering. He has been employed at University of Texas at San Antonio since 2007 where he is an associate professor of Civil Engineering. His research covers roadway construction materials, maintenance practices, sustainability and safety. He is the author of more than 80 referred publications on bituminous materials, computational micromechanics of asphalt mixtures, pavement reinforcement with geogrid, energy harvesting from roadway and motorist safety. Prof. Dessouky is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE). His research work won the best green technology innovation award by ASCE and best paper award by American Society of Engineering Education and Transportation Research Board. He serves on the board members of the bituminous committee of the construction institute and sits on the Editorial Boards of two international journals.
