Nonlinear Dynamics of Piezoelectric Cantilever Energy Converters Through Perturbation Theory and Experimental Analysis

Author(s):  
Paulo S. Varoto ◽  
Andreza T. Mineto

It is known that the best performance of a given piezoelectric energy harvester is usually limited to excitation at its fundamental resonance frequency. If the ambient vibration frequency deviates slightly from this resonance condition then the electrical power delivered is drastically reduced. One possible way to increase the frequency range of operation of the harvester is to design vibration harvesters that operate in the nonlinear regime. The main goal of this article is to discuss the potential advantages of introducing nonlinearities in the dynamics of a beam type piezoelectric vibration energy harvester. The device is a cantilever beam partially covered by piezoelectric material with a magnet tip mass at the beam’s free end. Governing equations of motion are derived for the harvester considering the excitation applied at its fixed boundary. Also, we consider the nonlinear constitutive piezoelectric equations in the formulation of the harvester’s electromechanical model. This model is then used in numerical simulations and the results are compared to experimental data from tests on a prototype. Numerical as well as experimental results obtained support the general trend that structural nonlinearities can improve the harvester’s performance.

2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cevat Volkan Karadag ◽  
Nezih Topaloglu

In this paper, a novel smart vibration energy harvester (VEH) is presented. The harvester automatically adjusts its natural frequency to stay in resonance with ambient vibration. The proposed harvester consists of two piezoelectric cantilever beams, a tiny piezomotor with a movable mass attached to one of the beams, a control unit, and electronics. Thanks to its self-locking feature, the piezomotor does not require energy to fix its movable part, resulting in an improvement in overall energy demand. The operation of the system is optimized in order to maximize the energy efficiency. At each predefined interval, the control unit wakes up, calculates the phase difference between two beams, and if necessary, actuates the piezomotor to move its mass in the appropriate direction. It is shown that the proposed tuning algorithm successfully increases the fractional bandwidth of the harvester from 4% to 10%. The system is able to deliver 83.4% of the total harvested power into usable electrical power, while the piezomotor uses only 2.4% of the harvested power. The presented efficient, autotunable, and self-sufficient harvester is built using off-the-shelf components and it can be easily modified for wide range of applications.


Author(s):  
Andreza T. Mineto ◽  
Paulo S. Varoto

In this paper we present an analytical investigation of a nonlinear energy harvester device. The device is composed of a cantilever beam partially covered by piezoelectric ceramics in a bimorph configuration with a magnetic lumped mass attached to the beam’s free end. The model accounts for the nonlinearity coming from the piezoelectric constitutive equations in addition to the nonlinear effect arising from the magnetic field generated by the magnetic properties of the tip mass and additional magnetic sources in the vicinity of the beam. The electromechanical coupled equations are solved numerically through the initial value problems for ordinary differential equations. The electrical power output is calculated by varying the amplitude of the base acceleration, the distance between the magnets and the load resistor. The stability of the system is also investigated. From the numerical results it is found that the influence of the parameters investigated in the frequency range of operation of the device and the nonlinear effects present on the device energy harvester extend the useful frequency range of these.


2010 ◽  
Vol 133 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Khameneifar ◽  
M. Moallem ◽  
S. Arzanpour

This paper presents modeling and analysis of a piezoelectric mounted rotary flexible beam that can be used as an energy scavenger for rotary motion applications. The energy harvester system consists of a piezoelectric bimorph cantilever beam with a tip mass mounted on a rotating hub. Assuming Euler–Bernoulli beam equations and considering the effect of a piezoelectric transducer, equations of motion are derived using the Lagrangian approach followed by relationships describing the harvested power. The equations provide a quantitative description of how the hub acceleration and gravity due to the tip mass contribute power to the energy harvester. In particular, expressions describing optimum load resistance and the maximum power that can be harvested using the proposed system are derived. Numerical simulations are performed to show the performance of the harvester by obtaining tip velocities and electrical output voltages for a range of electrical load resistances and rotational speeds. It is shown that by proper sizing and parameter selection, the proposed system can supply enough energy for operating wireless sensors in rotating mechanisms such as tires and turbines.


Author(s):  
Kamal Jahani ◽  
Parisa Aghazadeh

In this work, the effects of joint characteristics on the performance of a nonlinear piezoelectric energy harvester are investigated numerically. Large amplitude deflection unimorph beam with a tip mass and a nonlinear piezoelectric layer is considered as an energy harvester. By applying Euler-Lagrange equation and the Gauss’s law, mechanical and electrical equations of motion are obtained respectively, under two scenarios, i.e. with an ideal (rigid) joint and with a flexible one. A numerical approach is followed to investigate the effects of each nonlinear parameter of the harvester (stiffness, damping and piezoelectric coefficient) on harvested power. Results show that considering ideal joint between harvester and base structure leads to overestimating the maximum output power and the range of effective excitation frequency.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2865 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sungryong Bae ◽  
Pilkee Kim

In this study, optimization of the external load resistance of a piezoelectric bistable energy harvester was performed for primary harmonic (period-1T) and subharmonic (period-3T) interwell motions. The analytical expression of the optimal load resistance was derived, based on the spectral analyses of the interwell motions, and evaluated. The analytical results are in excellent agreement with the numerical ones. A parametric study shows that the optimal load resistance depended on the forcing frequency, but not the intensity of the ambient vibration. Additionally, it was found that the optimal resistance for the period-3T interwell motion tended to be approximately three times larger than that for the period-1T interwell motion, which means that the optimal resistance was directly affected by the oscillation frequency (or oscillation period) of the motion rather than the forcing frequency. For broadband energy harvesting applications, the subharmonic interwell motion is also useful, in addition to the primary harmonic interwell motion. In designing such piezoelectric bistable energy harvesters, the frequency dependency of the optimal load resistance should be considered properly depending on ambient vibrations.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107754632199358
Author(s):  
Ali Fasihi ◽  
Majid Shahgholi ◽  
Saeed Ghahremani

The potential of absorbing and harvesting energy from a two-degree-of-freedom airfoil using an attachment of a nonlinear energy sink and a piezoelectric energy harvester is investigated. The equations of motion of the airfoil coupled with the attachment are solved using the harmonic balance method. Solutions obtained by this method are compared to the numerical ones of the pseudo-arclength continuation method. The effects of parameters of the integrated nonlinear energy sink-piezoelectric attachment, namely, the attachment location, nonlinear energy sink mass, nonlinear energy sink damping, and nonlinear energy sink stiffness on the dynamical behavior of the airfoil system are studied for both subcritical and supercritical Hopf bifurcation cases. Analyses demonstrate that absorbing vibration and harvesting energy are profoundly affected by the nonlinear energy sink parameters and the location of the attachment.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 1206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei-Jiun Su ◽  
Jia-Han Lin ◽  
Wei-Chang Li

This paper investigates a piezoelectric energy harvester that consists of a piezoelectric cantilever and a tip mass for horizontal rotational motion. Rotational motion results in centrifugal force, which causes the axial load on the beam and alters the resonant frequency of the system. The piezoelectric energy harvester is installed on a rotational hub in three orientations—inward, outward, and tilted configurations—to examine their influence on the performance of the harvester. The theoretical model of the piezoelectric energy harvester is developed to explain the dynamics of the system and experiments are conducted to validate the model. Theoretical and experimental studies are presented with various tilt angles and distances between the harvester and the rotating center. The results show that the installation distance and the tilt angle can be used to adjust the resonant frequency of the system to match the excitation frequency.


2016 ◽  
Vol 09 (05) ◽  
pp. 1650069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaoze Liu ◽  
Tongqing Yang ◽  
Fangming Shu

Since the piezoelectric properties were used for energy harvesting, almost all forms of energy harvester needs to be bonded with a mass block to achieve pre-stress. In this article, disc type piezoelectric energy harvester is chosen as the research object and the relationship between mass bonding area and power output is studied. It is found that if the bonding area is changed as curved, which is usually complanate in previous studies, the deformation of the circular piezoelectric ceramic is more uniform and the power output is enhanced. In order to test the change of the deformation, we spray several homocentric annular electrodes on the surface of a piece of bare piezoelectric ceramic and the output of each electrode is tested. Through this optimization method, the power output is enhanced to more than 11[Formula: see text]mW for a matching load about 24[Formula: see text]k[Formula: see text] and a tip mass of 30[Formula: see text]g at its resonant frequency of 139[Formula: see text]Hz.


Author(s):  
Saman Nezami ◽  
HyunJun Jung ◽  
Myung Kyun Sung ◽  
Soobum Lee

This paper presents mathematical modeling of an energy harvester (EH) for a wireless structure health monitoring (SHM) system in wind turbine blades. The harvester consists of a piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) beam, a gravity-induced disk, and magnets attached to both the beam and the disk. An electromechanical model of the proposed EH is developed using the energy method with repelling magnetic force considered. The three coupled equations — the motion of the disk, the vibration of the beam, and the voltage output — are derived and solved using ODE45 in MATLAB software. The result showed the blade rotation speed affects the output angular velocity of disk and the output PEH voltage. That is, as the blade speed increases, the disk angular velocity becomes nonlinear and chaotic which is more beneficial to generate larger power.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Zhao ◽  
Yi Qin ◽  
Lei Guo ◽  
Baoping Tang

Vibration-based energy harvesting technology is the most promising method to solve the problems of self-powered wireless sensor nodes, but most of the vibration-based energy harvesters have a rather narrow operation bandwidth and the operation frequency band is not convenient to adjust when the ambient frequency changes. Since the ambient vibration may be broadband and changeable, a novel V-shaped vibration energy harvester based on the conventional piezoelectric bimorph cantilevered structure is proposed, which successfully improves the energy harvesting efficiency and provides a way to adjust the operation frequency band of the energy harvester conveniently. The electromechanical coupling equations are established by using Euler-Bernoulli equation and piezoelectric equation, and then the coupled circuit equation is derived based on the series connected piezoelectric cantilevers and Kirchhoff's laws. With the above equations, the output performances of V-shaped structure under different structural parameters and load resistances are simulated and discussed. Finally, by changing the angle θ between two piezoelectric bimorph beams and the load resistance, various comprehensive experiments are carried out to test the performance of this V-shaped energy harvester under the same excitation. The experimental results show that the V-shaped energy harvester can not only improve the frequency response characteristic and the output performance of the electrical energy, but also conveniently tune the operation bandwidth; thus it has great application potential in actual structure health monitoring under variable working condition.


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