Piezoelectric impact-driven energy harvester

This paper evaluates a micro generator based on a piezoelectric transducer bending mechanism where impact force is being exerted onto the bending beam and hence generating electrical power across an external resistive load. The proposed bending mechanism prototype has been manufactured by using 3D printer in order to conduct the evaluation. A free fall test has been conducted as the evaluation method with variation of masses and different fall heights which produce different forces. In this experiment a piezoelectric transducer with size of rectangle 32mm in width, 70mm in length, and 0.55mm in thickness used to conduct the experiment. The experiment results show that the instantaneous AC volt output peak is increasing toward the maximum voltage of about 50V when an impact force of about 80N and above is being applied. It is also found out that a maximum DC power of about 8.8mW is generated at an impact force of 50N when it is connected to an external resistive load of 0.175KΩ.