Optimization of energy harvesting based on the uniform deformation of piezoelectric ceramic

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):  
Abbas F. Jasim ◽  
Hao Wang ◽  
Greg Yesner ◽  
Ahmad Safari ◽  
Pat Szary

This study investigated the energy harvesting performance of a piezoelectric module in asphalt pavements through laboratory testing and multi-physics based simulation. The energy harvester module was assembled with layers of Bridge transducers and tested in the laboratory. A decoupled approach was used to study the interaction between the energy harvester and the surrounding pavement. The effects of embedment location, vehicle speed, and temperature on energy harvesting performance were investigated. The analysis findings indicate that the embedment location and vehicle speed affects the resulted power output of the piezoelectric energy harvesting system. The embedment depth of the energy module affects both the magnitude and frequency of stress pulse on top of the energy module induced by tire loading. On the other hand, higher vehicle speed causes greater loading frequency and thus greater power output; the effect of pavement temperature is negligible. The analysis of total power output before reaching fatigue failure of the energy module can be used to determine the optimum embedment location in the asphalt layer. The proposed energy harvesting system provides great potential to generate green energy from waste kinetic energy in roadway pavements. Field study is recommended to verify these findings with long-term performance monitoring of pavement with embedded energy harvesters.


Author(s):  
Wanlu Zhou ◽  
Gopinath Reddy Penamalli ◽  
Lei Zuo

A novel piezoelectric energy harvester with multi-mode dynamic magnifier is proposed and investigated in this paper, which is capable of significantly increasing the bandwidth and the energy harvested from the ambient vibration. The design comprises of an multi-mode intermediate beam with a tip mass, called “dynamic magnifier”, and an “energy harvesting beam with a tip mass. The piezoelectric film is adhered to the harvesting beam to harvest the vibration energy. By properly designing the parameters, such as the length, width and thickness of the two beams and the weight of the two tip masses, we can virtually magnify the motion in all the resonance frequencies of the energy harvesting beam, in a similar way as designing a new beam-type tuned mass damper (TMD) to damp the resonance frequencies of all the modes of the primary beam. Theoretical analysis, finite element simulation, and the experiment study are carried out. The results show that voltage produced by the harvesting beam is amplified for efficient energy harvesting over a broader frequency range, while the peaks of the first three modes of the primary beam can be effectively mitigated simultaneously. The experiment demonstrates 25.5 times more energy harvesting capacity than the conventional cantilever type harvester in broadband frequency 3–300Hz, and over 1000 times more energy close to the first three resonances of harvesting beam.


Author(s):  
Feng Qian ◽  
Lei Zuo

Abstract This paper studies the nonlinear dynamics and energy harvesting performance of a novel bi-stable piezoelectric energy harvester inspired by the rapid shape transition of the Venus flytrap leaves. The harvester is composed of a piezoelectric MFC transducer, a tip mass, and two sub-beams. The two sub-beams are akin to the bidirectionally curved Venus flytrap leaves that could rapidly snap-through from the open state to the closed state. To realize the bistability of the Venus flytrap leaves induced by the stored potential energy, an in-plane pre-displacement constraint is applied to the free ends of the sub-beams. The pre-displacement constraint leads to bending and twisting deformations and creates the potential energy in the harvester. The bio-inspired design is introduced in detail and a prototype is fabricated to validate the conceptual design. The nonlinear dynamics of the bio-inspired bi-stable piezoelectric energy harvester is investigated under base acceleration excitations. Results show that the sub-beams of the harvester experience more complicated local vibrations containing broadband high-frequency components as the snap-through motion happens. The energy harvesting performance of the harvester is evaluated at different excitation levels. The broadband energy harvesting is achieved at higher excitation levels and an average power output of 0.193 mW is attained under the excitation of 10 Hz and 4.0 g.


2011 ◽  
Vol 148-149 ◽  
pp. 169-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Yan Wang ◽  
Xiao Biao Shan ◽  
Tao Xie

The impedance matching and the optimization of power from a circular piezoelectric energy harvester with a central-attached mass are studied. A finite element model is constructed to analyze the electrical equivalent impedance of the circular piezoelectric energy harvester. Furthermore, the complex conjugate matching load is used to extract the maximum output power of the energy harvester. The power output from complex conjugate matching load is compared with the power output from the resistive matching load and a constant resistance, separately. The results suggest that the complex conjugate matching can result in a significant increase of the output power for all frequencies. The effective bandwidth of the piezoelectric energy harvester is extended significantly.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Aladwani ◽  
O. Aldraihem ◽  
A. Baz

A class of piezoelectric energy harvester is presented to harness the vibration energy from coupled acoustic-structure systems such as those existing, for example, in aircraft acoustic cabin/flexible fuselage systems. Generic idealization of any of these systems involves the interaction between the dynamics of an acoustic cavity coupled with a flexible structure. Pressure oscillations inside the acoustic cavity induce vibration in the flexible structure and vice versa. Harnessing the associated vibration energy can be utilized to potentially power various vibration, noise, and health monitoring instrumentation. In this paper, the emphasis is placed on harnessing this energy using a special class of piezoelectric energy harvesters coupled with a dynamic magnifier in order to amplify its power output as compared to conventional harvesters. A finite element model (FEM) is developed to predict the performance of this class of harvesters in terms of the mechanical displacements of the flexible structure, the pressure inside the acoustic cavity, and the output electric voltage of the piezoelectric harvester. The FEM is formulated here to analyze a two-dimensional (2D) energy harvesting system which is composed of a rigid acoustic cavity coupled, at one end, with a vibrating base structure to which is attached the piezoelectric energy harvester. The developed FEM is exercised to predict the output electric power for broad interior pressure excitation frequencies. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the behavior of the harvester and extract the conditions for maximum electric power output of the harvester. The obtained results demonstrate the feasibility of the dynamic magnifier concept as an effective means for enhancing the energy harvesting as compared to conventional harvesters. The presented model can be easily extended and applied to more complex fluid–structure systems such as aircraft and vehicle cabins.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (20) ◽  
pp. 6759
Author(s):  
Zdenek Machu ◽  
Ondrej Rubes ◽  
Oldrich Sevecek ◽  
Zdenek Hadas

This paper deals with analytical modelling of piezoelectric energy harvesting systems for generating useful electricity from ambient vibrations and comparing the usefulness of materials commonly used in designing such harvesters for energy harvesting applications. The kinetic energy harvesters have the potential to be used as an autonomous source of energy for wireless applications. Here in this paper, the considered energy harvesting device is designed as a piezoelectric cantilever beam with different piezoelectric materials in both bimorph and unimorph configurations. For both these configurations a single degree-of-freedom model of a kinematically excited cantilever with a full and partial electrode length respecting the dimensions of added tip mass is derived. The analytical model is based on Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and its output is successfully verified with available experimental results of piezoelectric energy harvesters in three different configurations. The electrical output of the derived model for the three different materials (PZT-5A, PZZN-PLZT and PVDF) and design configurations is in accordance with lab measurements which are presented in the paper. Therefore, this model can be used for predicting the amount of harvested power in a particular vibratory environment. Finally, the derived analytical model was used to compare the energy harvesting effectiveness of the three considered materials for both simple harmonic excitation and random vibrations of the corresponding harvesters. The comparison revealed that both PZT-5A and PZZN-PLZT are an excellent choice for energy harvesting purposes thanks to high electrical power output, whereas PVDF should be used only for sensing applications due to low harvested electrical power output.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Erturk ◽  
P. A. Tarazaga ◽  
J. R. Farmer ◽  
D. J. Inman

For the past five years, cantilevered beams with piezoceramic layer(s) have been frequently used as piezoelectric energy harvesters for vibration-to-electric energy conversion. Typically, the energy harvester beam is located on a vibrating host structure and the dynamic strain induced in the piezoceramic layer(s) results in an alternating voltage output across the electrodes. Vibration modes of a cantilevered piezoelectric energy harvester other than the fundamental mode have certain strain nodes where the dynamic strain distribution changes sign in the direction of beam length. It is theoretically explained and experimentally demonstrated in this paper that covering the strain nodes of vibration modes with continuous electrodes results in strong cancellations of the electrical outputs. A detailed dimensionless analysis is given for predicting the locations of the strain nodes of a cantilevered beam in the absence and presence of a tip mass. Since the cancellation issue is not peculiar to clamped-free boundary conditions, dimensionless data of modal strain nodes are tabulated for some other practical boundary condition pairs and these data can be useful in modal actuation problems as well. How to avoid the cancellation problem in energy harvesting by using segmented electrode pairs is described for single-mode and multimode vibrations of a cantilevered piezoelectric energy harvester. An electrode configuration-based side effect of using a large tip mass on the electrical response at higher vibration modes is discussed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally.


Author(s):  
D. Guo ◽  
X. F. Zhang ◽  
H. Y. Li ◽  
H. Li

Energy harvesting using piezoelectric materials is an alternative method for low power electronics, such as MEMS, wireless sensor network, portable devices, and nano structures, from extracting the ambient energy. Most piezoelectric energy harvesters are based on cantilever beams with laminated piezoelectric patches. To generate higher dynamic response of piezoelectric energy harvesters, tip mass is attached at the free end of the cantilever beams. Piezoelectric energy harvester array is another way to improve the power, i.e., installing a set of cantilever piezoelectric energy harvesters in close distance. In this research, a new design of piezoelectric energy harvester is proposed. The present design consists of an array of cantilever beams with permanent magnets at the free ends. The permanent magnets are introduced to transfer the excitation force to every cantilever beams. An experimental model is manufactured and experimental energy harvesting is carried out. Piezoelectric patches are laminated on clamped end of cantilever beams, and the permanent magnets are fixed at the free ends. All the magnets have opposite poles with each other to generate repelling force. Then these piezoelectric electric energy harvesters were connected to an AC/DC circuit and the power was measured. Also, the power of proposed piezoelectric energy harvester was compared with the piezoelectric harvesters without permanent magnets. The results show that, present design can generate higher power at the same excitation. Under the base excitation at the first natural frequency, the array of the cantilever beam show similar motion pattern, i.e., there is no phase difference between each other. At higher frequencies, the beams have a phase difference of π. Thus the crash between the cantilever beams can be effectively avoided. At lower excitation frequencies, the presented piezoelectric energy harvester vibration likes the first mode of a simple multi-degree-of-freedom system; and at higher excitation frequencies, the vibration of the presented piezoelectric vibrates like a second mode of a MDOF system.


Author(s):  
Alper Erturk ◽  
Onur Bilgen ◽  
Daniel J. Inman

This paper presents the performance analysis of the single crystal piezoelectric ceramic PMN-PZT (where PMN stands for lead magnesium niobate and PZT stands for lead zirconate titanate) for piezoelectric energy harvesting. Unimorph cantilevers using PMN-PZT layers with Al (aluminum) and SS (stainless steel) substrates are tested under base excitation for a wide range of load resistance (from 10 ohms to 2.2 Mohms). Electrical power generation performance of the unimorphs using PMN-PZT is compared against that of the unimorphs using the conventional piezoelectric ceramic PZT-5H with Al and SS substrates. For both substrates, it is observed that the power density (power output per device volume) and the specific power (power output per device mass) results of the unimorphs using PMN-PZT are about two orders of magnitude larger than those of the unimorphs using PZT-5H. Outstanding power generation performance of the unimorphs with PMN-PZT is associated with stronger resistive shunt damping effect compared to unimorphs with PZT-5H. In addition to the experimental analyses and comparisons, power generation and shunt damping results of a single crystal unimorph are successfully predicted by using a distributed parameter electromechanical model. Results show that single crystal PMN-PZT is a very strong interface for piezoelectric energy harvesting and shunt damping. However, the improved power generation and shunt damping performance of PMN-PZT comes with reduced robustness due to the brittle nature of the single crystalline structure.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2171
Author(s):  
Hyeonsu Han ◽  
Junghyuk Ko

Along with the increase in renewable energy, research on energy harvesting combined with piezoelectric energy is being conducted. However, it is difficult to predict the power generation of combined harvesting because there is no data on the power generation by a single piezoelectric material. Before predicting the corresponding power generation and efficiency, it is necessary to quantify the power generation by a single piezoelectric material alone. In this study, the generated power is measured based on three parameters (size of the piezoelectric ceramic, depth of compression, and speed of compression) that contribute to the deformation of a single PZT (Lead zirconate titanate)-based piezoelectric element. The generated power was analyzed by comparing with the corresponding parameters. The analysis results are as follows: (i) considering the difference between the size of the piezoelectric ceramic and the generated power, 20 mm was the most efficient piezoelectric ceramic size, (ii) considering the case of piezoelectric ceramics sized 14 mm, the generated power continued to increase with the increase in the compression depth of the piezoelectric ceramic, and (iii) For piezoelectric ceramics of all diameters, the longer the depth of deformation, the shorter the frequency, and depending on the depth of deformation, there is a specific frequency at which the charging power is maximum. Based on the findings of this study, PZT-based elements can be applied to cases that receive indirect force, including vibration energy and wave energy. In addition, the power generation of a PZT-based element can be predicted, and efficient conditions can be set for maximum power generation.


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