A piezoelectric energy harvester for broadband rotational excitation using buckled beam

This paper proposes a rotational energy harvester using a piezoelectric bistable buckled beam to harvest low-speed rotational energy. The proposed harvester consists of a piezoelectric buckled beam with a center magnet, and a rotary magnet pair with opposite magnetic poles mounted on a revolving host. The magnetic plucking is used to harvest the angular kinetic energy of the host. The nonlinear snap-through mechanism is utilized to improve the vibration displacement and output voltage of the piezoelectric layer over a wide rotation frequency range. Theoretical simulation and experimental results show that the proposed energy harvester can yield a stable average output power ranging between 6.91-48.01 mu W over a rotation frequency range of 1-14 Hz across a resistance load of 110 k Omega. Furthermore, dual attraction magnets were employed to overcome the suppression phenomenon at higher frequencies, which yields a broad-band and flat frequency response over 6-14 Hz with the output power reaching 42.19-65.44 mu W, demonstrating the great potential of the bistable buckled beam for wideband rotation motion energy harvesting. (c) 2018 Author(s).