Publication detail

Experimentally Verified Analytical Models of Piezoelectric Cantilevers in Different Design Configurations

MACHŮ, Z. RUBEŠ, O. ŠEVEČEK, O. HADAŠ, Z.

English title

Experimentally Verified Analytical Models of Piezoelectric Cantilevers in Different Design Configurations

Type

journal article in Web of Science

Language

en

Original abstract

This paper deals with analytical modelling of piezoelectric energy harvesting systems for generating useful electricity from ambient vibrations and comparing the usefulness of materials commonly used in designing such harvesters for energy harvesting applications. The kinetic energy harvesters have the potential to be used as an autonomous source of energy for wireless applications. Here in this paper, the considered energy harvesting device is designed as a piezoelectric cantilever beam with different piezoelectric materials in both bimorph and unimorph configurations. For both these configurations a single degree-of-freedom model of a kinematically excited cantilever with a full and partial electrode length respecting the dimensions of added tip mass is derived. The analytical model is based on Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and its output is successfully verified with available experimental results of piezoelectric energy harvesters in three different configurations. The electrical output of the derived model for the three different materials (PZT-5A, PZZN-PLZT and PVDF) and design configurations is in accordance with lab measurements which are presented in the paper. Therefore, this model can be used for predicting the amount of harvested power in a particular vibratory environment. Finally, the derived analytical model was used to compare the energy harvesting effectiveness of the three considered materials for both simple harmonic excitation and random vibrations of the corresponding harvesters. The comparison revealed that both PZT-5A and PZZN-PLZT are an excellent choice for energy harvesting purposes thanks to high electrical power output, whereas PVDF should be used only for sensing applications due to low harvested electrical power output.

English abstract

This paper deals with analytical modelling of piezoelectric energy harvesting systems for generating useful electricity from ambient vibrations and comparing the usefulness of materials commonly used in designing such harvesters for energy harvesting applications. The kinetic energy harvesters have the potential to be used as an autonomous source of energy for wireless applications. Here in this paper, the considered energy harvesting device is designed as a piezoelectric cantilever beam with different piezoelectric materials in both bimorph and unimorph configurations. For both these configurations a single degree-of-freedom model of a kinematically excited cantilever with a full and partial electrode length respecting the dimensions of added tip mass is derived. The analytical model is based on Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and its output is successfully verified with available experimental results of piezoelectric energy harvesters in three different configurations. The electrical output of the derived model for the three different materials (PZT-5A, PZZN-PLZT and PVDF) and design configurations is in accordance with lab measurements which are presented in the paper. Therefore, this model can be used for predicting the amount of harvested power in a particular vibratory environment. Finally, the derived analytical model was used to compare the energy harvesting effectiveness of the three considered materials for both simple harmonic excitation and random vibrations of the corresponding harvesters. The comparison revealed that both PZT-5A and PZZN-PLZT are an excellent choice for energy harvesting purposes thanks to high electrical power output, whereas PVDF should be used only for sensing applications due to low harvested electrical power output.

Keywords in English

energy harvesting; vibrations; piezoelectric; analytical model; beam model; equivalent model; power prediction

Released

12.10.2021

Publisher

MDPI

Location

Basel, Switzerland

ISSN

1424-8220

Volume

21

Number

20

Pages from–to

6759–6759

Pages count

22

BIBTEX


@article{BUT172761,
  author="Zdeněk {Machů} and Ondřej {Rubeš} and Oldřich {Ševeček} and Zdeněk {Hadaš},
  title="Experimentally Verified Analytical Models of Piezoelectric Cantilevers in Different Design Configurations",
  year="2021",
  volume="21",
  number="20",
  month="October",
  pages="6759--6759",
  publisher="MDPI",
  address="Basel, Switzerland",
  issn="1424-8220"
}