Energy Harvesting From Controlled Buckling of a Horizontal Piezoelectric Beam

Author(s):  
M. H. Ansari ◽  
M. Amin Karami

A piezoelectric vibration energy harvester is designed to generate electricity under the weight of passing crowds. The piezoelectric beam buckles to a controlled extent when the device is stepped on. The device is a seven bar mechanism. The upper and lower bars as well as the lateral links are rigid. The middle horizontal beam is a bimorph piezoelectric beam. Damages to the piezoelectric beam are avoided by constraining its axial deformation. This constrain is implemented by limiting squeezing of the mechanism. When a person moves over the mechanism or steps off the devices it causes the bimorph to buckle or return to the unbuckled condition. The transitions result in vibrations of the piezoelectric beam and thus generate energy. In this paper, the energy harvester is analytically modeled. The electro-mechanical coupling and the geometric nonlinearities have been included in the model for the piezoelectric beam. The design criteria for the device are discussed. It is demonstrated that the device can be realized with commonly used piezoelectric patches and can generate hundreds of milliwatts of power. A three part beam is also investigated. The effect of design parameters on the generated power and required tolerances are illustrated. The proposed device could be implemented in the sidewalks producing energy from the weight of people passing over it. Other possible applications are portable smart phones chargers and shoe hill energy harvesting. Dance floor of a club is another applicable example for using this harvester. The main advantage of using horizontal configuration instead of a vertical arrangement is the ease of placement in the pavements.

2014 ◽  
Vol 953-954 ◽  
pp. 655-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guang Qing Shang ◽  
Hong Bing Wang ◽  
Chun Hua Sun

Energy harvesting system has become one of important areas of ​​research and develops rapidly. How to improve the performance of the piezoelectric vibration energy harvester is a key issue in engineering applications. There are many literature on piezoelectric energy harvesting. The paper places focus on summarizing these literature of mathematical modeling of piezoelectric energy harvesting, ranging from the linear to nonlinear, from early a single mechanical degree to piezoaeroelastic problems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan Gao ◽  
Hongrui Ao ◽  
Hongyuan Jiang

Abstract Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting technology has attracted significant attention for its applications in integrated circuits, microelectronic devices, and wireless sensors due to high power density, easy integration, simple configuration, and other outstanding features. Among piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting structures, the cantilevered beam is one of the simplest and most commonly used structures. In this work, a vertically staggered rectangle-through-holes (VS-RTH) cantilevered model is proposed, which focuses on the multi-directional vibration collection. To verify the output performance of the device, this paper employs basic materials and fabrication methods with mathematical modeling. The simulations are conducted through finite element methods to discuss the properties of VS-RTH energy harvester on resonant frequency and output characteristics. Besides, an energy storage circuit is adopted as a collection system. It can achieve a maximum voltage of 4.5 V which is responded to the harmonic vibrating input of 1 N force and 1 m/s2 in a single vibrating direction. Moreover, the power density is 2.596 W/cm3 with a 100 kΩ resistor. It is almost four times better than the output of unidirectional cantilever beam with similar resonant frequency and volume. According to the more functionality in the applications, VS-RTH energy harvester can be used in general vibration acquisition of machines and vehicles. Except for electricity storage, the harvester can potentially employ as a sensor to monitor the diversified physical signals for smooth operation and emergence reports. Looking forward, the VS-RTH harvester renders an effective approach toward decomposing the vibration directions in the environment for further complicating vibration applications.


Author(s):  
M. H. Ansari ◽  
M. Amin Karami

A three dimensional piezoelectric vibration energy harvester is designed to generate electricity from heartbeat vibrations. The device consists of several bimorph piezoelectric beams stacked on top of each other. These horizontal bimorph beams are connected to each other by rigid vertical beams making a fan-folded geometry. One end of the design is clamped and the other end is free. One major problem in micro-scale piezoelectric energy harvesters is their high natural frequency. The same challenge is faced in development of a compact vibration energy harvester for the low frequency heartbeat vibrations. One way to decrease the natural frequency is to increase the length of the bimorph beam. This approach is not usually practical due to size limitations. By utilizing the fan-folded geometry, the natural frequency is decreased while the size constraints are observed. The required size limit of the energy harvester is 1 cm by 1 cm by 1 cm. In this paper, the natural frequencies and mode shapes of fan-folded energy harvesters are analytically derived. The electro-mechanical coupling has been included in the model for the piezoelectric beam. The design criteria for the device are discussed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong-Xiang Zou ◽  
Wen-Ming Zhang ◽  
Ke-Xiang Wei ◽  
Wen-Bo Li ◽  
Zhi-Ke Peng ◽  
...  

In this paper, a novel piezoelectric vibration energy harvester using rolling mechanism is presented, with the advantage of harvesting more vibration energy and reducing the impact forces caused by the oscillation. The design utilizes an array arrangement of balls rolling the piezoelectric units, and a piezoelectric unit consists of a piezoceramic (PZT) layer and two raised metal layers bonded to both sides of the PZT layer. The rolling mechanism converts the irregular reciprocating vibration into the regular unidirectional rolling motion, which can generate high and relatively stable rolling force applied to the piezoelectric units. A theoretical model is developed to characterize the rolling mechanism of a ball rolling on a piezoelectric unit. And based on the model, the effects of structural design parameters on the performances of the vibration energy harvester are analyzed. The experimental results show that the rolling-based vibration energy harvester under random vibration can generate stable amplitude direct current (DC) voltage, which can be stored more conveniently than the alternating current (AC) voltage. The experimental results also demonstrate that the vibration energy harvester can generate the power about 1.5 μW at resistive load 3.3 MΩ while the maximal rolling force is about 6.5 N. Due to the function of mechanical motion rectification and compact structure, the rolling mechanism can be suitable for integrating into a variety of devices, harvesting energy from uncertain vibration source and supplying electric energy to some devices requiring specific voltage value.


Author(s):  
Shan Gao ◽  
Hongrui Ao ◽  
Hongyuan Jiang

Abstract Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting technology has attracted significant attention for its applications in integrated circuits, microelectronic devices and wireless sensors due to high power density, easy integration, simple configuration and other outstanding features. Among piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting structures, cantilevered beam is one of the simplest and most commonly used structures. In this work, a vertically staggered rectangle-through-holes (VS-RTH) cantilevered model of mesoscale piezoelectric energy harvester is proposed, which focuses on the multi-directional vibration collection and low resonant frequency. To verify the output performances of the device, this paper employs basic materials and fabrication methods with mathematical modeling. The simulations are conducted through finite element methods to discuss the properties of VS-RTH energy harvester on resonant frequency and output characteristics. Besides, an energy storage circuit with high power collection rate is adopted as collection system. This harvester is beneficial to the further application of devices working with continuous vibrations and low power requirements.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 1105-1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongxing Cao ◽  
Xiangying Guo ◽  
Wenhua Hu

The transformation of waste vibration energy into low-power electricity has been intensely researched over the last decade to enable self-sustained wireless electronic components. Many kinds of nonlinear oscillators have been explored by several research groups in an effort to enhance the frequency bandwidth of operation. The negative stiffness vibration isolator, as a kind of passive vibration isolator, has undergone extensive investigation because of its low-frequency isolator characteristics. In this article, a novel broadband piezoelectric vibration energy harvester, which can be used for low-frequency ambient mechanical energy harvesting, is designed, and its dynamic responses are analyzed based on the advantage of the negative stiffness vibration isolator. The multi-scale perturbation method is applied to solve the electromechanical equations of the piezoelectric vibration energy harvester and obtain approximate analytical solutions. Solutions based on the analytical method and numerical simulations reveal the characteristics of significant broadband performance. The effects of the various system parameters on the frequency responses and output voltage of the piezoelectric vibration energy harvester system are investigated in detail, and the vibration isolation ability is verified by experimental measurements. It was concluded that the proposed piezoelectric vibration energy harvester achieved broadband vibration energy harvesting in the low-frequency vibration range.


2011 ◽  
Vol 483 ◽  
pp. 626-630 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua An Ma ◽  
Jing Quan Liu ◽  
Gang Tang ◽  
Chun Sheng Yang ◽  
Yi Gui Li ◽  
...  

As the low-power wireless sensor components and the development of micro electromechanical systems, long-term supply of components is a major obstacle of their development. One of solutions to this problem is based on the environmental energy collection of piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting. Currently, frequency band of piezoelectric vibration energy harvester is narrow and the frequency is high, which is not fit for the vibration energy acquisition in the natural environment. A piezoelectric vibration energy harvester with lower working frequency and broader band is designed and a test system to analyze the harvester is presented in this paper. The traditional mass is replaced by a permanent magnet in this paper, While other two permanent magnets are also placed on the upper and above of the piezoelectric cantilever. Experiments showed, under the 0.5g acceleration, compared with the traditional non-magnetic piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting, a piezoelectric cantilever (length 40mm, width 8mm, thickness 0.8mm) has a peak-peak voltage of 32.4V, effectively enlarges working frequency band from 67HZ-105HZ to 63HZ-108HZ.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document