Coupled Thermo-Electric-Elastic Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester With Axial Movement: Modeling, Verification, and Analysis

Abstract

In the field of rail transport and aerospace field, vibration energy harvesting is inevitably subjected to coupled excitations, including train wheel-track interaction induced friction heat and forced vibration, periodic thermal radiation, and vibration excitation. This paper investigates a coupled thermo-electric-elastic piezoelectric vibration energy harvester with axial movement under external heat flux and mechanical force load. The coupled forced vibration equation, coupled electric equation, and coupled thermoelastic heat conduction equation are derived and solved by Green's function theory. To analyze the effect of excitations on the response characteristics, the decoupled method is utilized to solve the coupled multi-field equations and obtain the displacement, electric, and temperature distribution closed-form solutions. The displacement coupling effect induced temperature distribution and the thermo-electric coupling effect triggered displacement are respectively decoupled and analyzed. The obtained closed-form temperature distribution and displacement solutions are verified by the finite element method. To further verify the obtained solutions, a numerical method is conducted by decoupling the coupled multi-field equations and comparing them with prior solutions. Additionally, the different height-to-length ratios, axially moving speeds, and external force load are analyzed in detail. The results indicate that the displacement, temperature distribution, and output voltage vary with external conditions due to the coupled multi-field effect. Overall, this work investigates the thermo-electric-elastic coupling effect on the axially moving piezoelectric energy harvesting, which is beneficial to promote theoretical investigations of the coupled multi-field energy harvesting system and accelerate the practical applications in the aerospace field.