Energy harvesting of cantilever with silicon tip mass based MEMS energy scavengers

Remote microsystems which have no physical connection to the outside world is having inefficient supplying of power and replacement of batteries is not always a convenient solution. But the piezoelectric energy scavengers through its direct piezoelectric effect can convert energy from random vibrations. In this paper, different traditional unimorph piezoelectric harvester geometries with tip mass are proposed, where substrate as well as tip mass is of silicon bulk material and PZT as their piezoelectric layer. These models are simulated using the finite element software INTELLISUITE 8.6 and their results show that the trapezoidal beam structure produces more energy compared to other structures under different loads.