Modeling and parametric study of a force-amplified compressive-mode piezoelectric energy harvester
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures
Published online on April 24, 2016
Abstract
Piezoelectric energy harvesters have great potential for achieving inexhaustible power supply for small-scale electronic devices. However, the insufficient power-generation capability and the narrow working bandwidth of traditional energy harvesters have significantly hindered their adoption. To address these issues, we propose a nonlinear compressive-mode piezoelectric energy harvester. We embedded a multi-stage force amplification mechanism into the energy harvester, which greatly improved its power-generation capability. In this article, we describe how we first established an analytical model to study the force amplification effect. A lumped-parameter model was then built to simulate the strong nonlinear responses of the proposed energy harvester. A prototype was fabricated which demonstrated a superior power output of 30 mW under an excitation of 0.3g (