Abstract
This article presents a single-crystal piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) with a trapezoidal hollow hole that can obtain high energy density at low frequency. Harvesters with a hollow structure were fabricated through a series of manufacturing processes such as thermocompression bonding, screen printing and laser cutting. Finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental results showed that using low modulus brass instead of stainless steel as the PEH substrate enhances the voltage output of the device, and the hollow design greatly increases the overall stress level and power density. In addition, the developed PEH with a trapezoidal hole obtained the best output performance; when the acceleration, resonance frequency and matched load resistance were 0.5 g, 56.3 Hz and 114 kΩ, respectively, the peak voltage was 17 V and the power density was 2.52 mW/cm3. Meanwhile, compared with the unhollowed device, the peak voltage and maximum power density of the proposed PEH were increased by 30.7% and 24.4%, respectively, and the resonance frequency was reduced by 7%. This study verified the feasibility of the optimized design through simulation and experimental comparison.
Highlights
With the development of vibration energy harvesting technology, piezoelectric materials are playing an increasingly important role in the field of self-power supply [1,2,3], and piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) are gradually being used in various smart sensors and wireless network nodes or systems [4,5,6]
By replacing the stainless steel substrate layer with brass, the peak voltage and output power of the manufactured based PEH (B-PEH) was increased by 28%
13%, respectively, compared with the steel-based PEH (S-PEH), and the resonance frequency was reduced by 5%
Summary
With the development of vibration energy harvesting technology, piezoelectric materials are playing an increasingly important role in the field of self-power supply [1,2,3], and piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) are gradually being used in various smart sensors and wireless network nodes or systems [4,5,6]. Piezoelectric materials mainly include piezoelectric single crystals, ceramics, polymers and composite materials [7,8], while bulk. Harvesters designed with bulk PZT have the unique advantages of simple structure, high energy density and high conversion efficiency. They can be used to collect and supply energy from various vibration sources in the environment [10,11,12,13]. There are three main types of reported applications: assembled PEHs, which are mainly applied in road and vehicle suspension [14,15,16], wearable PEHs, which are usually used as an accessory on human body surfaces such as the arm and neck [17,18], and implantable PEHs, such as pacemakers and cochlear implants [18,19,20,21].
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