• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.307-308
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• 2013

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.406-413
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• 2015

The piezoelectric coupling in piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters with load resistance induces electrical damping as well as increase in the system stiffness. Starting from analytically deriving the explicit relations through governing equations in the frequency domain, this work identifies the characteristics of the electrically induced damping mechanism and shows that the electrically induced damping serves as a structural hysteretic damping on condition that a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester is excited at its short-circuit resonant frequency and its load resistor is optimally impedance- matched at the same time. Finally, it is analytically verified that the equivalence of a mechanical and an electrically induced damping ratio is required for the maximum power generation at a load resistor, which was claimed in some literature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.628-629
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• 2012

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.64-65
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• 2013

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.623-628
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• 2010

This paper presents a wind-power-driven portable power source based on piezoelectric effect. Positive piezoelectric effect is one of efficient and widely used mechanisms for converting mechanical energy to electrical energy. However, for this mechanism, a periodic mechanical stress with a high frequency, as in the case of AC, has to be exerted; such stress cannot be exerted by the natural wind in the environment. The natural wind has a constant velocity with slow and irregular variations, as in the case of DC. In this paper, we propose a novel and simple mechanism to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. The DC-like wind flow is passed through a propeller to convert it to an AC-like wind flow; the resultant AC-like periodic flow induces vibrations in a piezoelectric cantilever, thereby, generating electrical power. This system is expected to be one of practical solutions for wireless energy supply to ubiquitous sensor networks (USNs).

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.546-552
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• 2013

A cantilevered piezoelectric energy harvester(PEH) and an auxiliary mass-spring unit can be integrated into a novel two-degrees-of-freedom PEH where its lowest eigenmode is not an in-phase modes but an out-of-phase mode. This typical behavior was shown to enhance output power considerably compared with its stand-alone counterpart. The objective of this study is to newly develop a continuum-based mathematical model suitable for efficient analysis of the mode-sequence reversed PEH. Once such a mathematical model is available, various physical behaviors can be analytically investigated for better designs. After a new mathematical model is developed, its validity is checked by using ANSYS results, in terms of resonant frequency, open-circuit voltage, and output power with a specified external resistance.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.896-902
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• 2012

For most applications of the vibration energy harvesting technology as in wireless sensor networks for smart buildings and plants, the evaluation of DC output performance of vibration energy harvesters is typically required. However, there is no dedicated algorithm for the evaluation. The lack of a dedicated algorithm results from difficulties in the direct incorporation of nonlinear rectifying and regulating circuitry into finite element models of piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters. In this study, we develop a dedicated algorithm and present software based on it for the evaluation of not only AC but also DC electrical quantities. Here, an equivalent electrical circuit model is employed. The COMSOL multiphysics simulation tool is adopted for extracting equivalent electrical circuit parameters of a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester and MATLAB is used to make a graphical user interface. The AC voltage and power outputs calculated by the proposed algorithm under various conditions are compared with those by a traditional finite element analysis. The DC output voltage and power through a rectifier are obtained for varying values of smoothing capacitance and external resistance.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.397-404
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• 2010

The use of equivalent circuit models of piezoelectric energy harvesters is inevitable when power circuitry including rectifying and smoothing circuit elements is connected to them for evaluating DC electrical outputs. This is because it is difficult to incorporate the electro-mechanical coupling resulting from the additional circuitry into the conventional finite element analysis. Motivated by this observation, we propose a method to accurately extract the equivalent circuit parameters by using commercially available FEM software such as ANSYS which provides three-dimensional AC piezoelectric analysis. Then the equivalent circuit can be analyzed by circuit simulators such as $SimPowerSystems^{TM}$ of MATLAB. While the previous works have estimated the circuit parameters by experimental measurements or by analytical solutions developed only for limited geometries and boundary conditions, the proposed method has no such limitation because piezoelectric energy harvesters of any shapes and boundary conditions can be treated in FEM software. For the verification of the proposed method, multi-modal AC electrical power output by using a corresponding equivalent circuit is compared with that by ANSYS. The proposed method is then shown to be very useful in the subsequent evaluation of DC electrical output which is obtained by attaching a bridge diode and a storage capacitor to a piezoelectric energy harvester.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.364-368
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• 2013

Vibrational energy harvester based on piezoelectricity has been expected to be the dominant energy harvesting technology due to the advantages of high conversion efficiency, light weight and small size, night operation, etc. Its commercialization is just around the corner but the integration with power management electronics should be solved in advance. In this paper, therefore, fully-integrated design environment for piezoelectric energy harvesting systems is presented to assist co-design with the power management electronics. The proposed design environment is capable of analyzing the energy harvester including the package-induced damping effects and simulating the device and its power management electronics simultaneously. When the developed design environment was applied to the fabricated device, the simulated resonant frequency matched well with the experimental result with a difference of 2.97% only. Also, the complex transient response was completed in short simulation time of 3,001 seconds including the displacement distribution over the device geometry. Furthermore, a full-bridge power management circuit was modeled and simulated with the energy harvester simultaneously. Therefore the proposed, fully-integrated design environment is accurate and fast enough for the contribution on successful commercialization of piezoelectric energy harvester.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.439-439
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• 2009

Nowadays, source of MEMS, USN, Hybrid parts pay attention to energy harvesting. On this paper, energy harvesting was studied using piezoelectric effect. And, piezoelectric generator was designed and fabricated. Generators were designed by FEM simulation program and generators were made by attaching cymbal type metal plates on upper and bottom sides of a disc type piezoelectric ceramic. Output AC power was rectified to DC power by full bridge circuit and converted to regular voltage power by DC-DC converter. The final output power was charged to Ni-Cd battery. Using fabricated generators, output voltages dependant on thickness of ceramic, displacement of vibration, frequency of vibration were measured.