Design of Triangular Shaped Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester for MEMS Applications
Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, Vol. 10(5), Pages: 29-40, 2016
12 Pages Posted: 13 Jul 2017
Date Written: February 9, 2016
Abstract
Background: The power supply acts a s a major barrier for improvement in MEMS technology. The Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester (PVEH) is a promising solution for development of self powered micro scale devices. The triangular shaped cantilever structure is chosen for designing energy harvester because of its uniform strain distribution and maximum tolerable amplitude.
Objective: This paper deals with design of triangular shaped piezoelectric micro scale energy harvester which can harvest maximum energy at low resonant frequency. The proposed harvester have the ability to tolerate maximum load than conventional rectangular one. This harvester is very much useful in micro low power portable electronic devices where replacement of battery is inconvenient.
Results: The optimized structure produces 24% increase in stress at a resonant frequency of 177.5 Hz for a mechanical force of 0.005 N/m3 per unit length and hence the obtained potential is raised to 4 times of that of conventional rectangular structure.
Conclusion: The structure can be further optimized by changing certain parameters such as length, width and thickness of each layer. It is observed that longer, wider and thinner cantilever beam structure is preferred for the design of efficient energy harvester. In the future, there is a great demand for self powered electronic devices. Because of abundant availability of vibrations in the environment, the piezoelectric vibration energy harvester will become a promising solution to power the wireless micro devices.
Keywords: Cantilever, Finite Element Analysis, Maximum Tolerable Amplitude, MEMS, Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester, Uniform Strain Distribution
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