Energy Harvesting With Piezoelectric Nanobrushes: Analysis and Design Principles

Author(s):  
Carmel Majidi ◽  
Mikko Haataja ◽  
David J. Srolovitz

The development of self-powered electronic devices is essential for emerging technologies such as wireless sensor networks, wearable electronics, and microrobotics. Of particular interest is the rapidly growing field of piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH), in which mechanical strains are converted to electricity. Recently, PEH has been demonstrated by brushing an array of piezoelectric nanowires against a nanostructured surface. The piezoelectric nanobrush generator can be limited to sub-micron dimensions and thus allows for a vast reduction in the size of self-powered devices. Moreover, energy harvesting is controlled through contact between the nanowire tips and nanostructured surface, which broadens the design space to a wealth of innovations in tribology. Here we propose design criteria based on principles of contact mechanics, elastic rod theory, and continuum piezoelasticity.

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 3151
Author(s):  
Shuo Yang ◽  
Bin Wu ◽  
Xiucheng Liu ◽  
Mingzhi Li ◽  
Heying Wang ◽  
...  

In this study, a novel piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) based on the array composite spherical particle chain was constructed and explored in detail through simulation and experimental verification. The power test of the PEH based on array composite particle chains in the self-powered system was realized. Firstly, the model of PEH based on the composite spherical particle chain was constructed to theoretically realize the collection, transformation, and storage of impact energy, and the advantages of a composite particle chain in the field of piezoelectric energy harvesting were verified. Secondly, an experimental system was established to test the performance of the PEH, including the stability of the system under a continuous impact load, the power adjustment under different resistances, and the influence of the number of particle chains on the energy harvesting efficiency. Finally, a self-powered supply system was established with the PEH composed of three composite particle chains to realize the power supply of the microelectronic components. This paper presents a method of collecting impact energy based on particle chain structure, and lays an experimental foundation for the application of a composite particle chain in the field of piezoelectric energy harvesting.


Circuit World ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guoda Wang ◽  
Ping Li ◽  
Yumei Wen ◽  
Zhichun Luo

Purpose Existing control circuits for piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) suffers from long startup time or high power consumption. This paper aims to design an ultra-low power control circuit that can harvest weak ambient vibrational energy on the order of several microwatts to power heavy loads such as wireless sensors. Design/methodology/approach A self-powered control circuit is proposed, functioning for very brief periods at the maximum power point, resulting in a low duty cycle. The circuit can start to function at low input power thresholds and can promptly achieve optimal operating conditions when cold-starting. The circuit is designed to be able to operate without stable DC power supply and powered by the piezoelectric transducers. Findings When using the series-synchronized switch harvesting on inductor circuit with a large 1 mF energy storage capacitor, the proposed circuit can perform 322% better than the standard energy harvesting circuit in terms of energy harvested. This control circuit can also achieve an ultra-low consumption of 0.3 µW, as well as capable of cold-starting with input power as low as 5.78 µW. Originality/value The intermittent control strategy proposed in this paper can drastically reduce power consumption of the control circuit. Without dedicated cold-start modules and DC auxiliary supply, the circuit can achieve optimal efficiency within one input cycle, if the input signal is larger than voltage threshold. The proposed control strategy is especially favorable for harvesting energy from natural vibrations and can be a promising solution for other PEH circuits as well.


Author(s):  
Saman Farhangdoust ◽  
Gary Georgeson ◽  
Jeong-Beom Ihn ◽  
Armin Mehrabi

Abstract These days, piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) is introduced as one of the clean and renewable energy sources for powering the self-powered sensors utilized for wireless condition monitoring of structures. However, low efficiency is the biggest drawback of the PEHs. This paper introduces an innovative embedded metamaterial subframe (MetaSub) patch as a practical solution to address the low throughput limitation of conventional PEHs whose host structure has already been constructed or installed. To evaluate the performance of the embedded MetaSub patch (EMSP), a cantilever beam is considered as the host structure in this study. The EMSP transfers the auxetic behavior to the piezoelectric element (PZT) wherever substituting a regular beam with an auxetic beam is either impracticable or suboptimal. The concept of the EMSP is numerically validated, and the COMSOL Multiphysics software was employed to investigate its performance when a cantilever beam is subjected to different amplitude and frequency. The FEM results demonstrate that the harvesting power in cases that use the EMSP can be amplified up to 5.5 times compared to a piezoelectric cantilever energy harvester without patch. This paper opens up a great potential of using EMSP for different types of energy harvesting systems in biomedical, acoustics, civil, electrical, aerospace, and mechanical engineering applications.


2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 609-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Guyomar ◽  
Gaël Sebald ◽  
Sébastien Pruvost ◽  
Mickaël Lallart ◽  
Akram Khodayari ◽  
...  

Increasing demand in mobile, autonomous devices has made the issue of energy harvesting a particular point of interest. Systems that can be powered up by a few hundreds of microwatts can feature their own energy extraction module, making them truly self-powered. This energy can be harvested from the close environment of the device. Particularly, piezoelectric conversion is one of the most investigated fields for ambient energy harvesting. Moreover, the extraction process can be optimized by proper treatment of the piezomaterial output voltage. This article proposes a detailed explanation of the real energy flow that lies behind several energy conversion techniques for piezoelectric energy scavenging. As well, the principles of energy harvesting using piezoelectric effect is extended to the pyroelectric effect, therefore allowing harvesting energy from temperature variation, which is one of the most common energy sources.


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