Design and fabrication of bimorph transducer for optimal vibration energy harvesting

Vishwas Bedekar; Josiah Oliver; Shashank Priya

doi:10.1109/tuffc.2010.1582

Design and fabrication of bimorph transducer for optimal vibration energy harvesting

IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2010 Jul;57(7):1513-23. doi: 10.1109/tuffc.2010.1582.

Authors

Vishwas Bedekar¹, Josiah Oliver, Shashank Priya

Affiliation

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Center for Energy Harvesting Materials and Systems, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA.

PMID: 20941885
DOI: 10.1109/tuffc.2010.1582

Abstract

High energy density piezoelectric composition corresponding to 0.9Pb(Zr0.56Ti0.44)O3–0.1Pb[(Zn0.8/3Ni0.2/3) Nb2/3]O3 + 2 mol% MnO2 (PZTZNN) and 0.8[Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48) O3]-0.2[Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3] (PZTPZN) were synthesized by conventional ceramic processing technique using three different sintering profiles. Plates of the sintered samples were used to fabricate the piezoelectric bimorphs with optimized dimensions to exhibit resonance in the loaded condition in the range of ~200 Hz. An analytical model for energy harvesting from bimorph transducer was developed which was confirmed by experimental measurements. The results of this study clearly show that power density of bimorph transducer can be enhanced by increasing the magnitude of product (d ∙ g), where d is the piezoelectric strain constant and g is the piezoelectric voltage constant.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't