Towards the development of efficient low frequency piezoelectric energy harvesters

Author

Shukla, Rahul ; Qaisar, S. Adam ; Bell, Andrew J.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Process Environ. & Mater. Eng., Univ. of Leeds, Leeds, UK

fYear

2010

fDate

9-12 Aug. 2010

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

Piezoelectric energy harvesters are being examined thoroughly as a potential source of electrical power when harnessing surrounding mechanical vibrations. In literature, high frequency energy harvesters are discussed in sufficient details. The development of piezoelectric energy harvester becomes extremely challenging when source vibration frequency is very low. This is due to incompatible stiffness over mass ratio of piezoelectric device for resonance. This paper addresses the issues involved with the piezoelectric energy harvesting using the very low frequency mechanical vibrations of 2 Hz or less. The generated maximum power from THUNDER, Macro Fibre Composite (MFC) and Polyvinylidene flouride (PVDF) devices are compared with the conventional PbZrO3-PbTiO3 (PZT) bimorph devices under varying input displacements and forces.

Keywords

elastic constants; energy harvesting; fibres; piezoelectric devices; polymers; vibrations; conventional bimorph devices; electrical power; low frequency piezoelectric energy harvesters; macrofibre composite devices; mass ratio; mechanical vibrations; polyvinylidene flouride devices; source vibration frequency; stiffness; Energy harvesting; Generators; Materials; Piezoelectric devices; Resonant frequency; Vibrations; Wireless sensor networks; energy harvester; low frequency; piezoelectric; power generator;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Applications of Ferroelectrics (ISAF), 2010 IEEE International Symposium on the

Conference_Location

Edinburgh

ISSN

1099-4734

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-8190-3

Electronic_ISBN

1099-4734

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISAF.2010.5712228

Filename

5712228