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

Abstract

Accurate predictions of the amount of harvestable energy available from ambient vibrations are important for design of energy harvesters and for their integration in specific applications. This need has motivated the development of many mathematical models for piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs). Existing models, however, require material and geometric PEH data that are often incorrect and/or unavailable. As a more accurate and practical means to meet this need, we propose an energy conversion model of a cantilevered PEH that requires only geometric data and modal parameters that can be directly measured using a standard vibration test. The newly proposed model facilitates calculation of the maximum output power and thus enables visualization of the harvestable energy from the target vibrating structure. Prediction accuracy of the proposed model was confirmed in our study through finite element analysis and experimental results. Practical use of the proposed energy conversion model was demonstrated by applying it to a cooling fan unit of a boiler facility in a power plant.

Assessment of Structural Performance and Integrity for Vibration-based Energy Harvester in Frequency Domain

“…Among the studies addressing the performance evaluation of VEH, Xu et al [10], Youn et al [11], and Uzun et al [12] evaluated the power performance of a cantilever-type VEH using a piezoelectric element for its electric power. Patel et al [13] and Chen et al [14] examined the power variation in the VEH based on the direction of installation.…”

New efficiency measures of energy conversion and their characterization for piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters

“…in represents the maximum mechanical input power to an optimal impedance-matched PVEH normalized with respect to P sc in . To derive the final form in the above equation, the following relation was employed (Kim et al, 2015)…”

A Self-Powered, Threshold-Based Wireless Sensor for the Detection of Floor Vibrations

“…When a piezoelectric material is deformed by an external mechanical force, it generates a charge flow due to the change in electric polarization. This phenomenon is called the piezoelectric effect [14,15]. A typical piezoelectric energy harvester is a cantilever-type unimorph/bimorph using a ‘31’ mode (where mechanical strain is perpendicular to the poling direction).…”