Enhancing the bandwidth and energy production of piezoelectric energy harvester using novel multimode bent branched beam design for human motion application
Files
(Published version)
Date
2023
Authors
Piyarathna, I.E.
Lim, Y.Y.
Edla, M.
Thabet, A.M.
Ucgul, M.
Lemckert, C.
Editors
Xie, M.
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Journal article
Citation
Sensors, 2023; 23(3):1-25
Statement of Responsibility
Conference Name
Abstract
In recent years, harvesting energy from ubiquitous ultralow-frequency vibration sources, such as biomechanical motions using piezoelectric materials to power wearable devices and wireless sensors (e.g., personalized assistive tools for monitoring human locomotion and physiological signals), has drawn considerable interest from the renewable energy research community. Conventional linear piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) generally consist of a cantilever beam with a piezoelectric patch and a proof mass, and they are often inefficient in such practical applications due to their narrow operating bandwidth and low voltage generation. Multimodal harvesters with multiple resonances appear to be a viable solution, but most of the previously proposed designs are unsuitable for ultralow-frequency vibration.
This study investigated a novel multimode design, which included a bent branched beam harvester (BBBH) to enhance PEHs’ bandwidth output voltage and output power for ultralow-frequency applications. The study was conducted using finite element method (FEM) analysis to optimize the geometrical design of the BBBH on the basis of the targeted frequency spectrum of human motion. The selected design was then experimentally studied using a mechanical shaker and human motion as excitation sources. The performance was also compared to the previously proposed V-shaped bent beam harvester (VBH) and conventional cantilever beam harvester (CBH) designs.
The results prove that the proposed BBBH could harness considerably higher output voltages and power with lower idle time. Its operating bandwidth was also remarkably widened as it achieved three close resonances in the ultralow-frequency range. It was concluded that the proposed BBBH outperformed the conventional counterparts when used to harvest energy from ultralow-frequency sources, such as human motion.
School/Discipline
Dissertation Note
Provenance
Description
Access Status
Rights
Copyright 2023 The authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)