Optimized Power Output from Piezoelectric Flexure Element Driven by Low Frequencies

Abstract

Energy Harvesting is the process of capturing readily available energy and converting into usable electrical energy. Among the many different types of energy harvesting methods, piezoelectric energy harvesting has become popular as Piezoelectric materials have the ability to transform mechanical energy into electrical energy. This research is focused on obtaining and optimizing the output of commercially available piezoelectric device which converts mechanical vibrations (starin) into usable electrical energy. Moreover this research is focused on low vibrational frequency levels as normal vibration sources in the environment such as building, machine, human body, and vehicle have low frequency characteristics. In this research, output power of the piezoelectric energy harvester is measured for different vibration frequencies with different tip masses. By considering the experimental data, values for tip mass and vibration frequency are suggested to extract the maximum power output from the energy harvester in 0 to 50 Hz frequency range and 1.45 g to 6.45 g tip mass range.