Effect of garment design on piezoelectricity harvesting from joint movement

Abstract

The harvesting of piezoelectricity through the human body involves the conversion of mechanical energy, mostly generated by the repeated movements of the body, to electrical energy, irrespective of the time and location. In this research, it was expected that the garment design would play an important role in increasing the efficiency of piezoelectricity scavenged in a garment because the mechanical deformation imposed on the energy harvester could increase through an optimal design configuration for the garment parts supporting a piezoelectricity harvester. With this expectation, this research aimed to analyze the effect of the clothing factors, and that of human factors on the efficiency of piezoelectricity harvesting through clothing in joint movements. These analyses resulted in that the efficiency of the piezoelectricity harvesting was affected from both two clothing factors, tightness level depending upon the property of the textile material and design configuration of the garment part supporting the piezoelectricity harvesting. Among the three proposed designs of the garment part supporting the piezoelectricity harvesting, 'reinforced 3D module design,' which maximized the value of radius in the piezoelectricity harvester, showed the highest efficiency across all areas of the joints in the human body. The two human factors, frequency of movement and body part, affected the efficiency of the piezoelectricity harvesting as well.

Analysis of the Possibility of Using Energy Harvesters to Power Wearable Electronics in Clothing

“…Piezoelectric elements made of PVDF were also applied in clothing by Yang et al [18]. e view of clothing with a piezoelectric element is shown in the photograph (Figure 3).…”

“…A width of the element at the level of 10 mm was selected, in order to ensure the required resistance to repeated mechanical in uences. Yang et al [18] assessed three design variants that differed in terms of their spatial construction. A study carried out with the participation of volunteers demonstrated greater e ciency of piezoelectric elements with an increase in the elasticity of the textile material.…”

“…e distribution of elements of the generator in the garment was attained on the basis of experimental trials while walking. In this way, the exact trajectory of the (a) (b) Figure 3: A view of the garment with a piezoelectric element at the elbow line [18].…”

Smart polymer nanocomposites: A review

“…Smart materials are attracting increasing interest especially in the era of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) and circular economy. Smart polymer nanocomposites (SPN) which can be derived from shape memory polymer [3][4][5][6], stimuli-active polymers [7], smart electrorheological (ER) and magnetorheological (MR) polymer [8][9][10][11], self-healing polymer [12,13], self-cleaning polymer [14][15][16][17], self-heating polymer [18], self-sensing polymer [19], energy-harvesting and energy storage polymer [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] are the latest hot research topics. The addition of nanofiller can increase the performance of the SPN (e.g., shape fixity, shape recovery, self-healing ability) due to their high specific surface area, nucleating effects, reinforcing effects, and inherent functionalities (e.g., thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity) [3].…”

Auxetic piezoelectric energy harvesters for increased electric power output

“…Hereinto, piezoelectric energy harvesting has attracted more attention than other vibration energy harvesting methods such as using electromagnetic 1 and electrostatic 2 effects due to its advantages including simple structure, scalability and high power output. 3,4 The reported electric power outputs of piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) range from nanowatts to milliwatts, [5][6][7][8] which highly depend on the piezoelectric coupling coefficient of the piezoelectric material. There are dramatic performance improvements in new piezoelectric materials, such as piezoelectric single crystals PZN-PT and PMN-PT, but the wide use of these materials for energy harvesting in the near future is still in question due to their high cost.…”