Performances Investigation of Multi-Configuration Connections in Piezoelectric Energy Harvester

PurposeThe issue of supplying sustainable energy to self-powered electronics using ambient vibration sources has been a hot issue. In this paper, we comprehensively investigated multi-configuration connection of piezoelectric based energy harvester in horizontal and vertical placement.MethodsFirst, we modeled, simulated and validated the single vertical and horizontal cantilever beam by ANSYS software and experimental studies.ResultsExperimental results showed that the output voltage of vertical and horizontal placement is proportional to the excitation amplitude, but the vertical cantilever beam can achieve a lower resonance frequency than the horizontal beam. In a 2 M Omega external load, the maximum output voltage of the vertical and horizontal cantilever beam is 9.7 V and 9.8 V, respectively. Notably, the maximum power of the horizontal piezoelectric energy harvester is 82 mu W at the condition of 7 Hz excitation frequency and a 20 g tip mass, while the maximum output power of the vertical energy harvester is 80 mu W at the condition of 6Hz excitation frequency with a 25 g tip mass, with a 700 K Omega external load. Furtherly, we studied the performance of the multi-configuration connections of piezoelectric cantilever beam structure, and experimental results showed that the highest output voltage occurred at the condition of the serial connection of four piezoelectric beam in cross structure. However, the highest output power occurred at the condition of the serial-parallel connection of four piezoelectric beams in cross structure with 2 s twinkle interval of LED.ConclusionThe proposed energy harvester has a promising application in powering miniature low-power sensors in wireless sensor networks.