Harvesting vibration energy using two modal vibrations of a folded piezoelectric device

This letter reports a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester that uses the local lateral resonant modes of a folded structure to widen the operation frequency band. In addition, energy conversion efficiency is improved. A prototype energy harvester was fabricated and tested. The output power achieved two power peaks: 0.43 mW at 97 Hz and 6.64 mW at 120.9 Hz. The output power remained above 20 mu W within the operation frequency band that ranged from 88 Hz to 177 Hz when the energy harvester was driven with a vibration of 0.7 g peak acceleration. The output power remained higher than half of one of the maximum power peaks (0.43 mW) between 95 Hz and 101 Hz. Meanwhile, it remained higher than half of the other maximum power peak (6.64 mW) between 120.5 Hz and 123.8 Hz. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.