An Experimental Performance Evaluation of DC Power Generation and Power Loss in Full-Bridge Rectifier of Cantilever Type of Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester

Abstract

Rotating machinery is widely used in the industrial plant. In order to ensure safety operation of the rotating machinery, vibration condition monitoring of the machinery can play a crucial role. Authors have proposed a cantilever type of vibration energy harvester for vibration condition monitoring applications of rotating machinery. Proposed energy harvester consisted of Macro-Fiber Composite (MFC). In this study, not only the DC power generation performance but also power loss in full-wave bridge rectifier of the proposed vibration energy harvester is experimentally evaluated. The maximum DC output power through 287.6(kΩ) resistor which includes instruments internal resistances obtained 109.5(μW) when subjected to vibration source input magnitude of 0.71(mm/s rms) at the resonant frequency of the harvester. The impedance matching between MFC actuators and the electrical resistive load was also effective for maximizing the DC power transfer of the vibration energy harvester. The power loss in full-wave bridge rectifier reached 13.7(μW) at the resonant frequency.