A Novel Design and Performance Results of An Electrically Tunable Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester (TPVEH)

Abstract

The need for energy harvesters for various applications, including structural health monitoring (SHM) in remote and inaccessible areas, is well established. Energy harvesters can utilize the ambient vibration of the body on which they are mounted to generate energy, thus eliminating the need for an external source of power. One such type of harvester is designed using piezoelectric materials and using a cantilever type set-up. However, the challenge associated with cantilever-based Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesters (PVEH) is that its output power reduces when the ambient vibration frequency deviates from the resonant frequency of the harvester. This calls for a mechanism to tune its resonant frequency to match with the ambient frequency. This article presents an innovative design of an electrically tunable PVEH. The PVEH is integrated with an Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC) as an actuator that loads the cantilever beam, changing the stiffness of the beam. IPMC utilizes low power, and the authors demonstrate in this paper that a net gain of power can be achieved by this novel design. For the configuration used, it is experimentally proven that a frequency shift from 5.9 Hz to 8 Hz is achieved with three actuation values. Typical power output from the harvester is 52.03 µW when the power spent on actuation is only 0.765 µW. On-going modeling of this system using simulation software is expected to lead to further optimization and prototyping of design.

Applications of a Novel Tunable Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester

“…The device has a patent pending [ 18 ]. The novelty of the device, design details, and detailed experimental results are covered in earlier published papers by the authors [ 16 , 17 ].…”

“…Here, the authors have used a novel tunable piezoelectric vibration energy harvester, where a low-power Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC) actuator is used as a stopper, to power commercially available sensors. Details of the harvester are given in the earlier papers by the authors [ 16 , 17 ]. The authors also have a patent pending [ 18 ].…”