Cavity Inclusion Effects on the Performance of Piezoelectric Energy Harvester

Abstract

The appropriate use of mechanical vibrations to provide consistent power to distributed micro-scaled electronic devices is one of the challenging problem for researchers these days. To improve the electromechanical efficiency through piezoelectric energy harvesting, researchers are involved in different areas like, material engineering, structure changing, dimension tailoring and so on. In the direction of structure modification, this paper analyzed the effect on performance parameters of piezoelectric energy harvesting device by introducing cavity within the beam in different manner using COMSOL multiphysics software. Here, the presented simulation study is in good agreement with analytical simulations. This paper first dealt with the horizontal variations in cavity position with and without variations in position of piezoelectric layer. Further, the effect of changes in vertical position and thickness of the cavity has been optimized separately. It has been observed from the simulation results that involvement of cavity within the substrate beam alter the bending stiffness, neutral axis and strain distribution of the beam and is responsible for corresponding changes in frequency, voltage and power response of the beam.