Fused filament fabrication of PVDF films for piezoelectric sensing and energy harvesting applications

Colored fused filament fabrication

Fig. 1. Our technique enables color printing with precisely controlled gradients using a filament printer. Le : The printer is equipped with an o -the-shelf nozzle that inputs multiple filaments (three in the picture) and outputs molten mixed plastic through a single exit hole. Such devices cannot directly be used to print gradients: the transition between mixtures takes time, and this timing v...

Vibration energy harvesting: fabrication, miniaturisation and applications

This paper reviews work at the University of Southampton and its spin-out company Perpetuum towards the use of vibration energy harvesting in real applications. Perpetuum have successfully demonstrated vibration-powered condition monitoring systems for rail and industrial applications. They have pursued applications were volume is not a particular constraint and therefore sufficient power can b...

PVDF microbelts for harvesting energy from respiration†

In this paper, we report a technique that uses piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) microbelts to convert the energy from low-speed air flow to electricity via their resonant oscillation. The micrometre thick PVDF thin films were fabricated by a top-down reactive ion etching process, where the thickness was controlled by etching time and the piezoelectric phase was well preserved. The t...

A periodic folded piezoelectric beam for efficient vibration energy harvesting

Periodic piezoelectric beams have been used for broadband vibration energy harvesting in recent years. In this paper, a periodic folded piezoelectric beam (PFPB) is introduced. The PFPB has special features that distinguish it from other periodic piezoelectric beams. The Adomian decomposition method (ADM) is used to calculate the first two band gaps andtwelve natural frequencies of the PF...

Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Devices for Low Frequency Vibration Applications