Collecting the vibration energy existing in the surrounding environment and its transformation to a useful electrical energy in order to supply ultra-low power systems remains an emerging and promising technology. During the last decades, most of research efforts dealt with energy-harvesting technology using piezoelectric ceramics. However, those materials are stiff and limited in mechanical strain abilities. In addition, they lose their stiffness and piezoelectricity at high levels of mechanical strain. Thus, they are unsuitable for many applications in which low frequency and high strain level are required. However, electrostrictive polymers are lightweight, very flexible, have low manufacturing costs and are easy to mould into any desired shapes. These special properties led to them being considered as potential actuators. However, it is not well known that these materials also can be used for mechanical-to-electrical energy harvesting. In this research paper, electromechanical characterization of polymer/lead zirconate titanate composites was extended. The first part develops the analytical model predicting the energy harvested by polyurethane/PZT composites from electrical and mechanical properties of their constituent materials. Indeed, this model was based on the approach of representing the experimental setup with an equivalent electrical scheme. The second part focuses on the assessment of model performance by comparison between predicted and observed values. As a result, good agreements were observed between the two sets of data; in addition, the model could be used to optimize the choice of constituent materials. The last part concerns the contribution of both the electrostrictive effect and piezoelectric effect in electrical powers harvested by PU/PZT composites.
This article focuses on the magnetoelectric (ME) effect that could be obtained in a bilayered structure consisting of the Cytop polymer and a magnetic tape filled with magnetically soft particles. The ME behavior was characterized by measuring the amplitude of the magnetoelectric current versus various input parameters that appear in theoretical expressions, i.e., the bias magnetic field, the alternative magnetic field, and the applied frequency. Experimental results were investigated together with theoretical models in order to determine the ME coupling value. It was found that the laminate material of a transversely charging electret along with bias magnetic tape could attain significant magnetoelectric properties, which were the result of the mechanical contacts between the layers and the electric-mechanical and magnetic-mechanical coupling in each phase. All the results demonstrated a possibility to realize a low-cost flexible current sensor while achieving an improved magnetoelectric response.
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