Electroelastic finite element modeling and experimental validation of structurally-integrated piezoelectric energy harvester

Abstract

Vibration-based energy harvesting has attracted interest of researchers from various disciplines over the past decade. In the literature of piezoelectric energy harvesting, the typical configuration is a unimorph or a bimorph cantilevered piezoelectric beam located on a vibrating host structure subjected to base excitations. As an alternative to cantilevered piezoelectric beams, piezoelectric layers structurally integrated on thin plates can be used as vibration-based energy harvesters since plates and plate-type structures are commonly used in aerospace, automotive and marine applications. The aim of this paper is to present experiments and electroelastic finite element simulations of a piezoelectric energy harvester structurally integrated on a thin plate. The finite element model of the piezoceramic patch and the all-edges-clamped plate are built. In parallel, an experimental setup is constructed using a thin PZT-5A piezoceramic patch attached on the surface of alledges-clamped rectangular aluminum plate. The electroelastic frequency response functions relating voltage output and vibration response to forcing input are validated using the experimentally obtained results. Finally, electrical power generation of the piezoceramic patch is investigated using the experimental set-up for a set of resistive loads. The numerical predictions and experimental results show that the use of alledge-clamped flexible plate as host structure for piezoelectric energy harvester leads to multimodal vibration-to-electricity conversion.