Theoretical and experimental studies of beam bimorph piezoelectric power harvesters

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical model for simulating a piezoelectric beam bimorph power harvester consisting of a laminated piezoelectric beam, a proof mass, and an electrical load. The vertical offset of the proof mass center from the beam centroid couples the bending and longitudinal motions, which makes it necessary to consider both longitudinal and lateral vibrations simultaneously. Experiments were carried out on a beam bimorph prototype mounted on a shaker to measure the electrical output. Numerical results obtained using the proposed procedure for piezoelectric bimorph power harvesters are in good agreement with the experimental data.