Date of Award:

8-2026

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

Nick Roberts

Committee

Nick Roberts

Committee

Hailei Wang

Committee

Srishti Banerji

Abstract

The purpose of using electric vehicles instead of internal combustion engine vehicles that burn gas is to reduce pollutants in the air and potential environmental impacts such as climate change. EVs produce much less air pollutants than ICEVs but manufacturing the EV batteries and the repeated recharging still contributes to the overall air pollution.

Capacitive power transfer systems can wirelessly charge vehicles through the road as they drive along highways or stop at traffic lights. If vehicles charge as they drive, an opportunity opens to reduce the size of the battery while maintaining the same driving range. Reducing the size of the battery will lower the amount of resources needed to manufacture the batteries and make the vehicle more efficient by lowering the overall weight. Capacitive power transfer systems are a potential candidate for use in common roads and highways due to being made from simple and cheap materials.

When capacitive charging systems are buried underground in roads they will generate heat. The purpose of this thesis is to calculate the temperatures throughout a capacitive charging by running simulations representing realistic traffic scenarios. Results show the charging pad heating up to a maximum of 392.89 K. The results are verified against an experiment.

This thesis also explores a sensitivity analysis where it is determined what variables in the traffic simulation affect the temperature the most. The sensitivity analysis is used to make a design tool were users can quickly get maximum temperature results by changing inputs like traffic flow, vehicle speed, and charging power of the charging system. This study will show through the design tool that vehicle batteries can be reduced by up to 16% by putting capacitive charging technology into common roads.

Checksum

a70a6cdb520ee1aa4daf08ac2a8dad94

Download

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .