Vibration Energy Harvesting by Means of Piezoelectric Patches: Application to Aircrafts.

Domenico Tommasino,Alberto Doria,Thibault De Lumley Woodyear,Bruno Bernay,Enrique De Pablo Corona,Federico Moro

doi:10.3390/s22010363

Abstract

Vibration energy harvesters in industrial applications usually take the form of cantilever oscillators covered by a layer of piezoelectric material and exploit the resonance phenomenon to improve the generated power. In many aeronautical applications, the installation of cantilever harvesters is not possible owing to the lack of room and/or safety and durability requirements. In these cases, strain piezoelectric harvesters can be adopted, which directly exploit the strain of a vibrating aeronautic component. In this research, a mathematical model of a vibrating slat is developed with the modal superposition approach and is coupled with the model of a piezo-electric patch directly bonded to the slat. The coupled model makes it possible to calculate the power generated by the strain harvester in the presence of the broad-band excitation typical of the aeronautic environment. The optimal position of the piezoelectric patch along the slat length is discussed in relation with the modes of vibration of the slat. Finally, the performance of the strain piezoelectric harvester is compared with the one of a cantilever harvester tuned to the frequency of the most excited slat mode.

Highlights

Vibration energy harvesters equipped with piezoelectric materials have been subject of research for decades both in the private and the public sectors
Piezoelectric patches in the form of thin films can be embedded onto vibrating structures at hard-to-reach places, where other forms of energy sources are not feasible to mount on
In order to carry out this analysis, a grid of test positions is defined, which consists of three rows of thirty evenly spaced positions along the slat’s length

Summary

Introduction

Vibration energy harvesters equipped with piezoelectric materials have been subject of research for decades both in the private and the public sectors. These materials’ applications towards energy harvesting, are experiencing a bigger boom thanks to the opportunities offered through low-power sensing systems [1,2,3] coupled with modern wireless data-transfer modules [4,5]. Piezoelectric patches in the form of thin films can be embedded onto vibrating structures at hard-to-reach places, where other forms of energy sources (such as batteries) are not feasible to mount on. The widespread implementation of harvesting technologies is still difficult, and research efforts are made in order to develop eco-friendly and cost-efficient piezoelectric materials [6]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion