Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting device based on water sloshing-inspired extensions

Yang Fu,Meiling Huang,Suifan Chen,Ruiming Wu,Maoying Zhou,Qipeng Li,Qibing Wang,Feng Huang

doi:10.1063/5.0054336

Abstract

Inspired by shallow-water sloshing in a moving tank, a novel type of vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvesting device composed of a piezoelectric bimorph beam and an extension tank is proposed in this paper. The structure and working principle of the proposed device are provided. Then, the effects of different heights of water filling in the tank on the performances of the harvester are studied and analyzed. Experiments are set up to investigate the actual device performance by changing the base excitation frequency and load resistance for different water heights. The results show that by modulating the water height, the resonant frequency and bandwidth can be adjusted, which can enhance the energy harvesting performance of the device at different ambient vibration frequencies. This study provides some clues to improve the performance of the vibration-based energy harvesting devices.

Highlights

With the development of IoTs (Internet of things) and other applications, various wireless sensors and wireless sensor networks are widely demanded.1 How to power the wireless sensors has been receiving increased attention.2–4 Batteries are widely used as conventional energy sources; they are limited due to their low lifespan and energy storage capacity, which are commonly needed to be regularly recharged or replaced
Inspired by shallow-water sloshing in a moving tank, a novel type of vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvesting device composed of a piezoelectric bimorph beam and an extension tank is proposed in this paper
A novel type of vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvesting device is proposed, which is composed of a piezoelectric beam and a tank with water filling for forming a cantilever beam

Summary

Introduction

With the development of IoTs (Internet of things) and other applications, various wireless sensors and wireless sensor networks are widely demanded.1 How to power the wireless sensors has been receiving increased attention.2–4 Batteries are widely used as conventional energy sources; they are limited due to their low lifespan and energy storage capacity, which are commonly needed to be regularly recharged or replaced. Experiments are set up to investigate the actual device performance by changing the base excitation frequency and load resistance for different water heights. The results show that by modulating the water height, the resonant frequency and bandwidth can be adjusted, which can enhance the energy harvesting performance of the device at different ambient vibration frequencies.

Results

Conclusion