A design and experimental verification methodology for an energy harvester skin structure

Abstract

This paper presents a design and experimental verification methodology for energy harvesting (EH) skin, which opens up a practical and compact piezoelectric energy harvesting concept. In the past, EH research has primarily focused on the design improvement of a cantilever-type EH device. However, such EH devices require additional space for proof mass and fixture and sometimes result in significant energy loss as the clamping condition becomes loose. Unlike the cantilever-type device, the proposed design is simply implemented by laminating a thin piezoelectric patch onto a vibrating structure. The design methodology proposed, which determines a highly efficient piezoelectric material distribution, is composed of two tasks: (i) topology optimization and (ii) shape optimization of the EH material. An outdoor condensing unit is chosen as a case study among many engineered systems with harmonic vibrating configuration. The proposed design methodology determined an optimal PZT material configuration on the outdoor unit skin structure. The designed EH skin was carefully prototyped to demonstrate that it can generate power up to 3.7 mW, which is sustainable for operating wireless sensor units for structural health monitoring and/or building automation.

Vibration Bandgaps of Piezoelectric Metamaterial Plate with Local Resonators for Vibration Energy Harvesting

“…Piezoelectric patches can be feasible especially for thin structures used in the fields of aerospace, automotive, and marine applications. Lee and Youn presented a design and experimental verification methodology for piezoelectric energy harvesting skin, which was optimized by two steps [7]. Later, Yoon et al developed an electromechanically coupled analytical model of PEH skin considering the inertia and stiffness effects of a piezoelectric patch [8].…”

Fluid–structure interaction analysis of a piezoelectric flexible plate in a cavity filled with a fluid

“…Recently, piezoelectric materials have been used as energy harvesters, which convert aero-elastic vibrations to electric energy [5,[11][12][13][14][15][16]. Although these problems are of a FSI type, they were investigated by experimental analysis or a prede ned vibration was assumed in numeric simulation.…”

An Energy conversion model for cantilevered piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters using only measurable parameters

“…[4][5][6][7] In this work, we are mainly concerned with piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) because piezoelectricity is known to possess high energy conversion efficiency and ease of miniaturization. 7 Although many improved configurations for PEHs have been proposed to overcome the main issues of insufficient output power and narrow working frequency bandwidth, [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] cantilever-type PEHs with relatively low resonant frequencies have been more commonly employed so far either in unimorph or bimorph configurations. It is noted that cantilever-type PEHs still play a role as a reference when the performance of a newly developed PEH are to be compared.…”