Design and Fabrication of PVDF Based Flexible Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester

Abstract

In this work, a novel petal-shaped substrate with a trapezoidal active layer Flexible Energy Harvester(FEH) is modeled using an analytical equation. The trapezoidal shape piezoelectric layer’s geometric parameters are optimized using the Nelder-Mead(NM) method. The active layer PVDF films are fabricated using the solution casting method. The NM-optimized geometry generates a voltage of 1.9 V compared with the un-optimized structure. The three different proof mass shapes cube, ellipsoid, and cylindrical are utilized to tune the resonant frequency. The NM-optimized geometry with cylindrical proof mass provides open circuit AC voltage of 3.68 V at very low frequency air-conditioner vibration.