Role of Dynamic Load on Piezoelectricity of Polyvinylidene Fluoride in Pavement Geomaterial Systems

Abstract: In this study, PVDF solid thin patches have been synthesized with an emphasis on growth for physical properties and its uses to capture vibration sensitivity from dynamic loading. These patches were embedded and surface bonded in paving layer and confined paving geomaterials subjected to vibratory loads for potential energy harvesting and sensing engineering applications. The drop-casting method was used to synthesize the pristine PVDF patches. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) characterizations confirmed the successful synthesis of the representative composite films.

The commercialized software package Abaqus has been used to conduct the numerical simulations. The solution presented by numerical simulations to the problem of piezoelectric response of pristine PVDF has been observed in agreement with the experimental findings. The results showed an incremental voltage, deflection, and stress with an increased loading. The experimental observations with numerical simulations of PVDF in confined paving geomaterial confirmed a voltage of 0.8 to 3.5 V . On the surface of pavement, the deflections were observed in a range of 10^-4 to 10^-2 mm in the PVDF patch due to a vibratory load for the selected set of input loading (10 to 500kPa) leading to a stress of 0.01-0.1 GPa and a voltage of 0 to 3.5 V. The performance of PVDF presented in this work would encourage engineers and practitioners to energy harvesting and open a new avenue in the direction of environmentally sustainable paving infrastructure.