  Overloaded vehicles are the primary cause of accelerated degradation of road
infrastructures. In this context, although weigh-in-motion (WIM) systems are
most efficient to enforce weight regulations, current technologies require
costly investments limiting their extensive implementation. Recent advances in
multifunctional composites enabled cost-efficient alternatives in the form of
smart pavements. Nevertheless, the need for a stable power supply still
represents a major practical limitation. This work presents a novel
proof-of-concept self-sustainable WIM technology combining smart pavements and
vibration-based energy harvesting (EH). The feasibility of piezoelectric
bimorph cantilevered beams to harvest traffic-induced vibrations is firstly
investigated, followed by the demonstration of the proposed technology under
laboratory conditions. The main original contributions of this work comprise
(i) the development of a new self-powered data acquisition system, (ii) a novel
approach for the fabrication and electromechanical testing of the
piezoresistive composite pavement, and (iii) laboratory feasibility analysis of
the developed EH unit to conduct traffic load identification through electrical
resistivity measurements of the smart pavement. While the presented results
conclude the need for dense EH networks or combinations of different EH
technologies to attain complete self-sustainability, this work represents an
initial feasibility evidence paving the way towards the development of
self-powered low-cost WIM systems.
