Experimental study on a wide-band piezoelectric energy harvester with rotating beams vibrating in perpendicular directions. Issue 168 (2nd January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yang, L. J.; Zhang, H. F.
• Is Part Of: Integrated ferroelectrics. Issue 168(2016)
• Page Start: 85
• Page End: 96
• Publication Date: 2016-01-02
• Subjects: Piezoelectric -- energy harvesting -- wide band; Ferroelectric devices -- Periodicals; Integrated circuits -- Periodicals; 537.244805
• DOI: 10.1080/10584587.2016.1159101
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1058-4587

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We present here a new design for a wide-band piezoelectric energy harvester. Our system consists of two mutually perpendicular cantilever beams with attached PZT (lead zirconate titanate) patches. Traditional piezoelectric energy harvesters can only generate a single resonance peak and therefore they are limited by a narrow band and low power output. In this paper, by using two piezoelectric cantilever beams aligned in a mutually perpendicular direction, two resonance peaks are observed. Additionally, by adjusting the rotation angle of these beams, the operational frequency bandwidth has been enlarged by 70%–100%. Therefore, our new piezoelectric energy harvester has the potential to harvest energy in a wider frequency range for practical applications with variable frequency sources.