Energy harvesting using piezoelectric material is not a new concept, but its small generation capability has not been attractive for mass energy generation. For this reason, little research has been done on the topic.
Recently, wearable computer concepts, as well as small portable electrical devices, are a few motivations that have ignited the study of piezoelectric energy harvesting. The theory behind cantilever type piezoelectric elements is well known, as is the suppression of beam vibrations, but not from the context of extracting energy for later use. In this paper we analyze the governing equations of a unimorph beam in terms of the electrical energy that can be generated from base excitations with an eye toward developing design tools for energy harvesting hardware.
Energy harvesting using piezoelectric material is not a new concept, but its generation capability has not been attractive for mass energy generation. For this reason, little research has been done on the topic.
Recently, wearable computer concepts, as well as small portable electrical devices, are a few motivations that have ignited the study of piezoelectric energy harvesting again. The theory behind cantilever type piezoelectric elements is well known, but the transverse moving diaphragm elements, which can be used in pressure type energy generation is not yet fully developed. The power generation in a diaphragm depends on several factors. Among them, the thickness of each layer is important. In this paper, two diaphragm structures, unimorph and bi-morph, were used to calculate energy generation with varying thickness ratio using piezoelectric constitutive equation. The results of this analysis are presented with an eye toward guidelines for design of useful energy harvesting structure.
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