Abstract
The need for energy harvesters for various applications, including structural health monitoring (SHM) in remote and inaccessible areas, is well established. Energy harvesters can utilize the ambient vibration of the body on which they are mounted to generate energy, thus eliminating the need for an external source of power. One such type of harvester is designed using piezoelectric materials and using a cantilever type set-up. However, the challenge associated with cantilever-based Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesters (PVEH) is that its output power reduces when the ambient vibration frequency deviates from the resonant frequency of the harvester. This calls for a mechanism to tune its resonant frequency to match with the ambient frequency. This article presents an innovative design of an electrically tunable PVEH. The PVEH is integrated with an Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC) as an actuator that loads the cantilever beam, changing the stiffness of the beam. IPMC utilizes low power, and the authors demonstrate in this paper that a net gain of power can be achieved by this novel design. For the configuration used, it is experimentally proven that a frequency shift from 5.9 Hz to 8 Hz is achieved with three actuation values. Typical power output from the harvester is 52.03 µW when the power spent on actuation is only 0.765 µW. On-going modeling of this system using simulation software is expected to lead to further optimization and prototyping of design.
Highlights
Due to the developments in microsystems [1], very low power MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) based sensors are already realized
The challenge associated with cantilever-based Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesters (PVEH) is that its output power reduces when the ambient vibration frequency deviates from the resonant frequency of the harvester
Deployment of a large number of sensors on structures enables more comprehensive and interactive Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) for diagnosis and prognosis in the case of critical structures. In this present scenario of low power sensors and the resulting Internet of Things (IOT) and structural health monitoring (SHM), enabling autonomous power sources for the sensors by energy harvesting from ambient conditions is of great research interest
Summary
Due to the developments in microsystems [1], very low power MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) based sensors are already realized. Deployment of a large number of sensors on structures enables more comprehensive and interactive Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) for diagnosis and prognosis in the case of critical structures. In this present scenario of low power sensors and the resulting Internet of Things (IOT) and SHM, enabling autonomous power sources for the sensors by energy harvesting from ambient conditions is of great research interest. This will avoid the need for deploying batteries and the associated issues of recharging procedures. Some of the recent literature on this is presented below
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