A piezoelectric wafer-stack vibration energy harvester for wireless sensor networks

Xuezheng Jiang; Yancheng Li; Jianchun Li

doi:10.1117/12.2009630

19 April 2013 A piezoelectric wafer-stack vibration energy harvester for wireless sensor networks

Xuezheng Jiang, Yancheng Li, Jianchun Li

Proceedings Volume 8692, Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2013; 869246 (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2009630
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2013, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Over the past few decades, wireless sensor networks have been widely used in civil structure health monitoring application. Currently, most wireless sensor networks are battery-powered and it is costly and unsustainable for maintenance because of the requirement for frequent battery replacements. As an attempt to address such issue, this paper presents a novel piezoelectric vibrational energy harvester to convert the structural vibration into usable electrical energy for powering wireless sensor networks. Unlike the normal cantilever beam structure, the piezoelectric harvester presented in this paper is based on the wafer-stack configuration which is suitable for applications where large force vibration occurs, and therefore can be embedded in civil structures to convert the force induced by vibration of large structures directly into electrical energy. The longitudinal mode of the piezoelectric wafer-stack was developed firstly to illustrate the force-to-voltage relationship of piezoelectric materials and to find the inter-medium force that will be used to convert vibration energy into electrical energy. Then, two electromechanical models (without and with a rectified circuit), considering both the mechanical and electrical aspects of the harvester, were developed to characterize the harvested electrical power under the external load. Exact closed-form expressions of the electromechanical models have been derived to analyze the maximum harvested power and the optimal resistance. Finally, a shake table experimental testing was conducted to prove the feasibility of the presented piezoelectric-wafer-stack harvester under standard sinusoidal loadings. Test results show that the harvester can generate a maximum 45mW (AC) or 16mW (DC) electrical power for sinusoidal loading with 40mm amplitude and 2Hz frequency, and the harvested electrical power is proportional to the levels of exciting vibrational loading.

Citation Download Citation

Xuezheng Jiang, Yancheng Li, and Jianchun Li "A piezoelectric wafer-stack vibration energy harvester for wireless sensor networks", Proc. SPIE 8692, Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2013, 869246 (19 April 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2009630

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available