Non-linear losses study in strongly coupled piezoelectric device for broadband energy harvesting

Abstract

Piezoelectric vibration harvesters with strong electromechanical coupling coefficients have recently been combined with nonlinear electrical techniques capable of tuning their resonant frequency as a solution to provide energy to wireless sensor nodes from wideband vibrations. To be fully competitive, this approach requires piezoelectric generators with strong global electromechanical coupling coefficients k2. However, the presence of non-linear dielectric and piezoelectric losses in piezoelectric materials significantly reduces the power harvested when strongly coupled materials are used. This paper presents a non-linear model that allows for a better consideration of losses for such piezoelectric harvesters. An experimental validation is performed with a strongly coupled cantilever based on a PMN-PT material (k2 = 16 %). The results reveal the importance of considering non-linear dielectric losses. Indeed, we show thanks to the model that neglecting these losses can induce an 18 % overestimation of the harvested power for the presented prototype driven at 0.5 m/s2 amplitude ambient acceleration.