Mechanics-driven design of piezoelectric smart composite roadside structures for reliable VANET-enabled vehicular systems

This study presents an integrated vehicular–roadside–cloud architecture for designing and evaluating smart roadside units under multi-physics operating conditions. The objective is to improve structural stability, energy harvesting capability, and communication efficiency in intelligent transportation systems. The proposed framework combines traffic modeling, nonlinear structural dynamics, piezoelectric coupling, finite element analysis, fluid–structure interaction, and network optimization. A simulation scenario involving 180 vehicles over an 8 km roadway with 30 roadside units generated 85,000 mobility samples for comprehensive evaluation. Results indicate strong structural performance, with a maximum displacement of 2.8 mm and peak stress of 145 MPa. The optimized mechanical design achieves a stiffness of 4.2 × 106 N/m while reducing stress concentration by 18%. Piezoelectric integration enables energy harvesting with an electrical output of up to 21.4 V and a conversion efficiency of 44.7%. Finite element analysis confirms controlled stress distribution, and fatigue life is estimated at 1.8 × 107 cycles. Aerodynamic effects contribute minimally, increasing displacement by only 0.25 mm. Network performance evaluation shows low latency of 38 ms and throughput of 9.5 Mbps. Overall, the framework demonstrates significant improvements in structural integrity, energy efficiency, and communication performance, providing a robust solution for next-generation smart transportation infrastructure.

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