Energy Harvesting from Vibrating Piezo-Electric Structures

The process of capturing the energy from a system’s environment or surrounding and converting it into usable electrical energy is termed as energy harvesting. One form of energy harvesting is to employ piezoelectric materials to harvest energy from vibrating structures. These materials have the ability to absorb the mechanical energy and transform it into electrical energy that can be used to power other devices. In this work, it is proposed to theoretically and numerically investigate harvesting energy from mechanical vibrations by a micro electro-mechanical system that is composed of a unimorph cantilevered beam. The relevant equations of vibration, deflection, and natural frequency are derived in order to find the relationship between the tip displacement of the beam and the output voltage across its length. The effect of beam dimension and material properties of the active and inactive layers of the unimorph on the system’s performance in terms of output power and vibrational modes frequency is also investigated and presented in different comparison scenarios. Results of the developed model are validated by comparing them to the theoretical and experimental data of similar work done by other researchers, and by using the finite element analysis simulation software ABAQUS®.