Piezoelectric transducers are widely employed in vibration-based energy harvesting schemes. Simple piezoelectric cantilever for energy harvesting is uni-directional and has bandwidth limitation. In this research we explore utilizing internal resonances to harvest vibratory energy due to excitations from an arbitrary direction with the usage of a single piezoelectric cantilever. Specifically, it is identified that by attaching a pendulum to the piezoelectric cantilever, 1:2 internal resonances can be induced based on the nonlinear coupling. The nonlinear effect induces modal energy exchange between beam bending motion and pendulum motions in 3-dimensional space, which ultimately yield multidirectional energy harvesting by a single cantilever. Systematic analysis and experimental investigation are carried out to demonstrate this new concept.

Date Published: 2 April 2015
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9431, Active and Passive Smart Structures and Integrated Systems 2015, 94310M (2 April 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2084427

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9431:
Active and Passive Smart Structures and Integrated Systems 2015
Wei-Hsin Liao, Editor(s)