Theoretical and experimental investigation of a nonlinear compressive-mode energy harvester with high power output under weak excitations

Abstract

Harvesting ambient vibration energy is a promising method for realizing self-powered autonomous operation for low-power electronic devices. Most energy harvesters developed to date employ bending-beam configurations and work around the resonant points. There are two critical problems that have hindered the widespread adoption of energy harvesters: insufficient power output and narrow working bandwidth. To overcome these problems, we proposed a novel energy harvester, called a high-efficiency compressive-mode piezoelectric energy harvester (HC-PEH). The HC-PEH delicately synthesizes the merits of the force amplification effect of the flexural motion and the dynamic properties of elastic beams, and thus is capable of high power output with wide working bandwidth. In this paper, theoretical and experimental studies were performed on the HC-PEH. Taking nonlinear stiffness, nonlinear damping, and nonlinear piezoelectricity into account, we developed an analytical model that provides comprehensive insight into the nonlinear mechanical and electrical behaviors of the system. The analytical results closely render the experimental data and demonstrate great performance enhancement. In the experiment, a maximum power output of 54.7 mW is generated at 26 Hz under an acceleration of 4.9 m s −2 , which is over one order of magnitude higher than other stateof-the-art systems.

Comparison of PZN-PT, PMN-PT single crystals and PZT ceramic for vibration energy harvesting

“…It is reported that PZT shows nonlinear electromechanical properties under a high stress condition [30] and an appropriate stress state may increase the electromechanical coupling effect [31]. In contrast to the PZT ceramic, the relationship between the electromechanical properties of different-composition single crystals and stress states varies [32][33][34][35].…”

“…The symbols used in the model are summarized in Table 1. It is noted that this distributedparameter model holds a same form as the lumped-parameter model [31,37]. The voltage response of the coupling system is…”

Distributed parameter model and experimental validation of a compressive-mode energy harvester under harmonic excitations

“…Obviously, this distributed model is different to the lumped model in the existing works. [29][30][31] The nonlinear restoring force can be described by a polynomial of degree 7. If the displacement is fairly small, the influence of high order terms can be neglected, then this model approximates to the lumped model in the existing studies.…”

“…To further improve the power output as well as the reliability, Yang et al 29 proposed a high-efficiency compressive-mode energy harvester (HC-PEH). This novel energy harvester was developed with a multi-stage amplification mechanism that effectively amplified the stress on a piezoelectric element.…”

Toward Harvesting Vibration Energy from Multiple Directions by a Nonlinear Compressive-Mode Piezoelectric Transducer

“…The electromechanical system is modeled as a mass-springdashpot system with a coupled electrical term for the first resonant mode [17], [18]. The governing equations are…”