Energy harvesting technologies in roadway and bridge for different applications - A comprehensive review

Energy harvesting is a promising technique that can help produce renewable and clean energy and improve sustainability of infrastructure. The objective of this paper is to review available energy harvesting techniques that are used for roadway and bridge for different applications, including photovoltaic cell, solar collector, geothermal, thermoelectric, electromagnetic, and piezoelectric systems. The energy harvested can produce electric energy, provide heating or cooling, ice melting, power wireless sensors, and monitor structure conditions. Each energy harvesting technology is examined in depth including working principles, application examples, prototype developments, and major findings reported in the literature. The review summarized previous study efforts on energy harvesting system in the areas of material design, system optimization, theoretical analysis, laboratory testing, field experiment, and numerical modeling. Different energy-harvesting technologies were compared in terms of power output, cost-effectiveness, technology readiness level, advantages and disadvantages, support from government and industry. Finally, future research recommendations of energy harvesting in roadway and bridge were proposed.