engleski

Experimental characterisation of performances of optimized piezoelectric energy harvesters

The growing use of energy harvesting in wearable technologies made evident the potential limits in applying piezoelectric devices excited by random human motion. Piezoelectric energy harvesters are, in fact, characterised by a narrow area of optimal operation around their eigenfrequency. An optimization of the design parameters of such harvesters by using the design-of-experiments methodology, coupled with suitable frequency up- conversion excitation, can lead to the development of improved configurations of functional wearable devices. The validation of this approach via elaborated finite element models performed in this work allows proving its validity, but the resulting designs have to be experimentally verified as well. Suitable experimental setups, enabling harmonic, as well as frequency up-conversion excitation, are thus developed, enabling the validation of different dynamical conditions. The thus obtained experimental responses are compared to those attained via numerical simulations, allowing to deduce considerations important for the development of piezoelectric energy harvesters applicable in factual wearables.

broadband piezoelectric energy harvesting ; wearable technology ; DoE ; frequency up-conversion ; optimized geometry ; experimental assessment

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