Experiment and performance analysis of serpentine-shaped cantilever beam for pipeline vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvester prototype development

Abstract

Pipelines produce vibrations during fluids or gas transportation. These vibrations are less likely to cause structural failure as they exist in a small magnitude and can be harvested into useful energy. This paper presents a study on the piezoelectric energy harvesting method utilising mechanical energy from pipeline vibration into electrical energy. The performance of the serpentine-shaped piezoelectric cantilever beam was observed to check if the design can produce the highest output voltage within the allowable vibration region of the pipeline from 10 Hz to 300 Hz through finite element analysis in COMSOL Multiphysics software. In addition, this study investigates the energy harvesting potential of the proposed design under real pipeline vibration conditions through a lab vibration test. The harvested energy output is evaluated based on various vibration frequencies and amplitudes, which gives an idea of the device and its performance in different operating conditions. The experiment result shows that the energy harvester produced an open circuit voltage of 10.28 V to 15.45 V with 1 g vibration acceleration. The results of this research will contribute to the development of efficient piezoelectric energy harvesters adapted to pipeline environments.