Investigation of boundary flexibility on the performance of piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting beam systems by DTFM

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of boundary flexibility on the performance of piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH) beam systems, which has not been studied comprehensively in the literature despite its importance. The coupled electromechanical equations of motion of a piezoelectric cantilever beam with a tip mass are established, with the base boundary constrained by translational and rotational springs. An exact closed-form solution of the frequency response function (FRF) of the PVEH is obtained by the distributed transfer function method (DTFM). The DTFM is a systematic powerful tool for the dynamic analysis of distributed parameter continua with non-classical boundary conditions, intermediate constraints, coupled fields, and non-proportional damping without adding much complexity to the solution formulation. Moreover, the DTFM computes the derivatives of the response, that is, the strains, which are required in the electromechanical coupling formulation, simultaneously without any differentiation. Numerical results showing the effects of boundary flexibility on energy harvesting efficiency are presented. A first-order rational function relating the boundary stiffness parameters and the harvesting efficiency is determined by nonlinear curve fitting of the calculated data. Physical insights and applicability of this analytical function for end-of-line quality check of the boundary of PVEH are discussed.

Recent advancements in piezoelectric energy harvesting for implantable medical devices

“…The copious tuning approaches in the literature were offered to improve the linear model’s broadband responsiveness and increase the power harvesting capability. Among studies on the linear energy harvesters presented by researchers, some are based on mechanical tuning models (Amoozegar and Tan, 2023; Liu et al, 2023), magnetic tuning models (Brusa, 2020; Pasquale et al, 2013), electric tuning models (Costanzo and Vitelli, 2020; Morel et al, 2019), distributed parameter models (Tan et al, 2017; Wang et al, 2020; Zhou et al, 2021) and lumped parameter models (Baishya et al, 2017; Fakharian et al, 2019; Yuan et al, 2018). The traditional linear model is only appropriate for particular vibration energy harvester (VEH) applications with a singular vibration frequency (resonant frequency).…”