Improvement of Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Efficiency Through Optimal Patch Configuration

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore how to improve the efficiency of a vibrating hybrid energy harvester through changing the patch configuration. The results of this work identify the patch configuration that maximises output while using the same amount of piezoelectric material. Using 6 patches was found to be the most efficient when looking at the energy output from a single cycle. Stress distributions generated using ANSYS show that this was because the patches were all located in areas of high stress. The 2 patch configuration resulted in the highest energy conversion at low frequencies (peak loss factor <50Hz) while the performance of the 6 patch configuration was characterised by high energy conversion over a wider range of frequencies.