• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.333-343
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• 2019

The possibility of adopting vibration-powered wireless nodes has been largely investigated in the last years. Among the available technologies based on the piezoelectric effect, the most common ones consist of a vibrating beam covered by electroactive layers. Another energy harvesting strategy is based on the use of piezoelectric strips attached to a hosting structure subjected to dynamic loads. The hosting structure, for example, can be the system to be equipped with wireless nodes. Such strategy has received few attentions so far and no analytical studies have been presented yet. Hence, the original contribution of the present paper is concerned with the development of analytical solutions for the electrodynamic analysis and design of piezoelectric polymeric strips attached to relatively large linear elastic structural systems subjected to random vibrations at the base. Specifically, it is assumed that the dynamics of the hosting structure is dominated by the fundamental vibration mode only, and thus it is reduced to a linear elastic single-degree-of-freedom system. On the other hand, the random excitation at the base of the hosting structure is simulated by filtering a white Gaussian noise through a linear second-order filter. The electromechanical force exerted by the polymeric strip is negligible compared with other forces generated by the large hosting structure to which it is attached. By assuming a simplified electrical interface, useful new exact analytical expressions are derived to assess the generated electric power and the integrity of the harvester as well as to facilitate its optimum design.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.211-211
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• 2008

태양열, 바람, 지열, 진동 등의 우리주변에서 쉽게 얻을 수 있는 에너지를 모아서 필요로 하는 전자기기의 에너지원으로 사용하는 개념의 에너지하비스팅에 대한 연구가 활발히 진행되고 있다. 기계적인 변경으로 전압이 발생하는 압전체는 오래전 알려져 있었지만 발생전압이 낮아 에너지발전용으로 적용이 힘들었다. 하지만 전자기기의 소형화와 함께 필요로 하는 전력도 수 ${\mu}W$로 낮아짐으로 압전체를 이용한 에너지하비스팅이 주목 받고 있다. 전선으로 연결하여 전원을 공급하기 힘든 위치에 있는 전자기기는 주기적으로 배터리를 교환해 주어야한다. 이는 시간적, 금전적, 인적자원의 낭비이며 반영구적으로 전원을 공급할 장치개발이 필요하다. 구조물은 수~ 수십 Hz로 진동을 하며 이 진동으로 압전체에 변형을 주어 전압을 발생시킨다. 변형이 클 때 발생전압도 크게 되므로 압전체를 칸틸레버형태로 제작했다. 더 큰 전압발생을 위해 메탈을 사이에 두고 양면에 압전체를 둔 바이몰프 형태로 캔틸레버를 제작했다. 이때 진동의 충격을 완화시켜 압전체에 인가되도록 하고 구조물의 고유진동수모다 큰 진동수로 압전체가 진동하도록 하기위해 스프링을 사용하여 제작하였다. 이 스프링 지지구조 및 가진 조건에 따른 발전특성을 알아보았다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.219-219
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• 2008

Energy harvesting from the environment has been of great interest as a standalone power source of wireless sensor nodes for ubiquitous sensor networks (USN). There are several power generating methods such as thermal gradients, solar cell, energy produced by human action, mechanical vibration energy, and so on. Most of all, mechanical vibration is easily accessible and has no limitation of weather and environment of outdoor or indoor. In particular, the piezoelectric energy harvesting from ambient vibration sources has attracted attention because it has a relative high power density comparing with other energy scavenging methods. Through recent advances in low power consumption RF transmitters and sensors, it is possible to adopt a micro-power energy harvesting system realized by MEMS technology for the system-on-chip. However, the MEMS energy harvesting system hassome drawbacks such as a high natural frequency over 300 Hz and a small power generation due to a small dimension. To overcome these limitations, we devised a novel power generator with a spiral spring structure. In this case, the energy harvester has a lower natural frequency under 200 Hz than a normal cantilever structure. Moreover, it has higher an energy conversion efficient because shear mode ($d_{15}$) is much larger than 33 mode ($d_{33}$) and the energy conversion efficiency is proportional to the piezoelectric constant (d). We expect the spiral type MEMS power generator would be a good candidate as a standalone power generator for USN.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.25-38
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• 2021

The aim of this study is to protect workers and pedestrians from accidents at night or bad weather by attaching optical fiber to existing safety clothing that is made only with fluorescent fabrics and retroreflective materials. A safety vest was designed and manufactured by applying optical fiber, and energy-harvesting technology was developed. The safety vest was designed to emit light using the automatic flashing of optical fibers attached to the film, and an energy harvester was manufactured and attached to drive the light emission of the optical fiber more continuously. As a result, first, the vest wearer' body was recognized from a distance through the optical fiber and retroreflection, which helped prevent accidents. Thus, this concept helps in saving lives by preventing accidents during night-time work on the roadside or activities of rescue crew and sports activities, or by quickly finding the point of an accident with a signal that changes the optical fiber light emission. Second, to use the wasted energy, a piezoelectric-element power generation system was developed and the piezoelectric-harvesting device was mounted. Potentially, energy was efficiently produced by activating the effective charging amount of the battery part and charging it auxiliary. In the existing safety vest, detecting the person wearing the vest is almost impossible in the absence of ambient light. However, in this study, the wearer could be found within 100 m by the light emission from the safety vest even with no ambient light. Therefore, in this study, we will help in preventing and reducing accidents by developing smart safety clothing using optical fiber and energy harvester attached to save lives.

• Ceramist
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.54-88
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• 2020

Global effort has resulted in tremendous progress with energy harvesters that extract mechanical energy from ambient sources, convert it to electrical energy, and use it for systems such as wrist watches, mobile electronic devices, wireless sensor nodes, health monitoring, and biosensors. However, harvesting a single energy source only still pauses a great challenge in driving sustainable and maintenance-free monitoring and sensing devices. Over the last few years, research on high-performance mechanical energy harvesters at the micro and nanoscale has been directed toward the development of hybrid devices that either aim to harvest mechanical energy in addition to other types of energies simultaneously or to exploit multiple mechanisms to more effectively harvest mechanical energy. Herein, we appraise the rational designs for multiple energy harvesting, specifically state-of-the-art hybrid mechanical energy harvesters that employ multiple piezoelectric and triboelectric mechanisms to efficiently harvest mechanical energy. We identify the critical material parameters and device design criteria that lead to high-performance hybrid mechanical energy harvesters. Finally, we address the future perspectives and remaining challenges in the field.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1226-1235
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• 2016

For wearable health monitoring systems, a fundamental problem is the limited space for storing energy, which can be translated into a short operational life. In this paper, a highly efficient active voltage doubling rectifier with a wide input range for micro-piezoelectric energy harvesting systems is proposed. To obtain a higher output voltage, the Dickson charge pump topology is chosen in this design. By replacing the passive diodes with unbalanced-biased comparator-controlled active counterparts, the proposed rectifier minimizes the voltage losses along the conduction path and solves the reverse leakage problem caused by conventional comparator-controlled active diodes. To improve the rectifier input voltage sensitivity and decrease the minimum operational input voltage, two low power common-gate comparators are introduced in the proposed design. To keep the comparator from oscillating, a positive feedback loop formed by the capacitor C is added to it. Based on the SMIC 0.18-μm standard CMOS process, the proposed rectifier is simulated and implemented. The area of the whole chip is 0.91×0.97 mm², while the rectifier core occupies only 13% of this area. The measured results show that the proposed rectifier can operate properly with input amplitudes ranging from 0.2 to 1.0V and with frequencies ranging from 20 to 3000 Hz. The proposed rectifier can achieve a 92.5% power conversion efficiency (PCE) with input amplitudes equal to 0.6 V at 200 Hz. The voltage conversion efficiency (VCE) is around 93% for input amplitudes greater than 0.3 V and load resistances larger than 20kΩ.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2016.07a
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• pp.227-228
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• 2016

본 논문에서는 압전소자를 이용한 에너지 하베스터의 전기적 모델링을 제안하였고 이를 시뮬레이션 및 실험을 통해 비교 분석하였다. 에너지 하베스터는 압전소자를 이용한 발전기, 풀브리지 정류기, 평활용 콘덴서, 부하로 구성된다. 본 논문에서는 에너지 하베스팅 방법으로 Standard AC 방법과 이에 풀브리지 정류기를 추가한 Standard DC 방법을 사용하였고 전기적 모델링, 시뮬레이션, 실험의 분석을 위해 압전 발전기를 RLC 등가모델로 구성하였다. 에너지 하베스터 실험장치를 구성하였으며, 두 가지의 전력변환 기법 각각 $73.7{\mu}W$, $69.3{\mu}W$를 하베스팅 하는 것을 확인하였다.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.155-173
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• 2016

This paper presents a method of design for the energy harvesting of a piezoelectric cantilever beam. Vibration modes have strain nodes where the strain distribution changes in the direction of the beam length. Covering the strain nodes of the vibration modes with continuous electrodes effects a cancellation of the voltages outputs. The use of segmented electrodes avoids cancellations of the voltage for multi-mode vibration. The resistive load affects the voltage and generated power. The optimum resistive load is considered for segmented and continuous electrodes, and then the power output is verified. One of the effective parameters on energy harvesting performance is the existence of concentrated mass. This topic is studied in this paper. Resonance and off-resonance cases are considered for the harvester. In this paper, both theoretical and experimental methods are used for satisfactory results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.890-897
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• 2014

This work investigated the electromechanical performance of a cantilevered vibration energy harvester incorporating the single crystal PMN-PZT, manufactured with the most recent technology of solid-state single crystal growth. The performances of single crystal PMN-PZTs with two different crystallographic axes such as [011] and [001] are compared with those of PZT ceramics. From the investigations, it is shown that the [001]-poled PMN-PZT is advantageous for the excitations containing single dominant frequency component, while the single crystal [011]-$d_{32}$ is superior in terms of the energy storage density and energy conversion efficiency.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.383-399
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• 2015

Today, as railways increase their capacity and speeds, it is more important than ever to be completely aware of the state of vehicles fleet's condition to ensure the highest quality and safety standards, as well as being able to maintain the costs as low as possible. Operation of a modern, dynamic and efficient railway demands a real time, accurate and reliable evaluation of the infrastructure assets, including signal networks and diagnostic systems able to acquire functional parameters. In the conventional system, measurement data are reliably collected using coaxial wires for communication between sensors and the repository. As sensors grow in size, the cost of the monitoring system can grow. Recently, auto-powered wireless sensor has been considered as an alternative tool for economical and accurate realization of structural health monitoring system, being provided by the following essential features: on-board micro-processor, sensing capability, wireless communication, auto-powered battery, and low cost. In this work, an original harvester device is designed to supply wireless sensor system battery using train bogie energy. Piezoelectric materials have in here considered due to their established ability to directly convert applied strain energy into usable electric energy and their relatively simple modelling into an integrated system. The mechanical and electrical properties of the system are studied according to the project specifications. The numerical formulation is implemented with in-house code using commercial software tool and then experimentally validated through a proof of concept setup using an excitation signal by a real application scenario.