• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.544-544
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• 2014

Energy harvesting technology, which scavenges electric power from ambient, otherwise wasted, energy sources, has been explored to develop self-powered wireless sensors and possibly eliminate the battery replacement cost for wireless sensors. Among ambient energy sources, vibration energy can be converted into electric power through a piezoelectric energy harvester. For the last decade, although tremendous advances have been made in design methodology to maximize harvestable electric power under a given vibration condition, the research in reliability assessment to ensure durability has been stagnant due to the complicated nature of the multiple failure modes of a piezoelectric energy harvester, such as the interfacial delamination, fatigue failure, and dynamic fracture. Therefore, this study presents the first-ever system reliability analysis for multiple failure modes of a piezoelectric energy harvester using the Generalized Complementary Intersection Method (GCIM), while accounts for the energy conversion performance. The GCIM enables to decompose the probabilities of high-order joint failure events into probabilities of complementary intersection events. The electromechanically-coupled analytical model is implemented based on the Kirchhoff plate theory to analyze its output performances of a piezoelectric energy harvester. Since a durable as well as efficient design of a piezoelectric energy harvester is significantly important in sustainably utilizing self-powered electronics, we believe that technical development on system reliability analysis will have an immediate and major impact on piezoelectric energy harvesting technology.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.2457-2464
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• 2011

In this paper, a vibration energy harvesting circuit using a piezoelectric device is designed. MPPT(Maximum Power Point Tracking) control function is implemented using the electric power-voltage characteristic of a piezoelectric device to deliver the maximum power to load. The designed MPPT control circuit traces the maximum power point by periodically sampling the open circuit voltage of a full-wave rectifier circuit connected to the piezoelectric device output and delivers the maximum available power to load. The proposed vibration energy harvesting circuit is designed with $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS process. Simulation results show that the maximum power efficiency of the designed circuit is 91%, and the chip area except pads is $700{\mu}m{\times}730{\mu}m$.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.688-694
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• 2009

In this paper, we present the results of a preliminary study on the piezoelectric energy harvesting performance of a Zr-doped $PbMg_{1/3}Nb_{2/3}O_3-PbTiO_3$ (PMN-PZT) single crystal beam. A novel piezoelectric beam cantilever structure is used to demonstrate the feasibility of generating AC voltage during a state of vibration. The energy-harvesting capability of a PMN-PZT beam is calculated and tested. The frequency response of the cantilever device shows that the first mode resonance frequency of the excitation model exists in the neighborhood of several hundreds of hertz, which is similar to the calculated value. These tests show that several significantly open AC voltages and sub-mW power are achieved. To test the possibility of a small scale power source for a ubiquitous sensor network service, energy conversion and the testing of storage experiment are also carried out.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.32-38
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• 2008

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.148-149
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• 2013

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.379-390
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• 2019

In this research, we propose an energy harvesting structure with a flexible blade element vibrating at its first mode to maximize the power output of the piezoelectric material. For this purpose, a piezoelectric patch was attached on the blade element used in a small-scale wind turbine, and air load was applied with a suitable angle of attack in the stall zone. The aerodynamic load created by air excitation vibrates the blade element in its first natural frequency and maximizes the voltage output of the piezoelectric patch. The variation of power outputs with respect to electrical resistance, air speed, and extra mass is experimentally investigated for various cases. An analytical model is constituted using a single-mode blade element with piezoelectric patch dynamics, and the power outputs of the obtained model are compared with experimental results.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.3735-3740
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• 2012

In this paper, the performance of power generation for the energy harvesting block with a combination of piezoelectric technology and electromagnetic technology among various energy harvesting technologies was investigated. The goal of this study is to evaluate on the applicability of our developed energy harvesting block into the field of urban & housing. First, we carried out a finite element vibration analysis and evaluated the performance of power generation for the multi-layer energy harvester at laboratory scale. Second, we described the features of our developed prototype module that includes amplification technologies to improve power density per module and evaluated the performance of power generation for the energy harvesting block in a variety of ways. Finally, we suggested the direction for the improvement of the energy harvesting block module.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.266-284
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• 2010

Piezoelectric materials have become the most attractive functional materials for sensors and actuators in smart structures because they can directly convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and vise versa. They have excellent electromechanical coupling characteristics and excellent frequency response. In this article, the research activities and achievements on the applications of piezoelectric materials in smart structures in China, including vibration control, noise control, energy harvesting, structural health monitoring, and hysteresis control, are introduced. Special attention is given to the introduction of semi-active vibration suppression based on a synchronized switching technique and piezoelectric fibers with metal cores for health monitoring. Such mechanisms are relatively new and possess great potential for future applications in aerospace engineering.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.615-624
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• 2017

This paper experimentally investigates the feasibility of harvesting vibration energy from whistles using piezoelectric materials. The end goal of this research is to generate sufficient power from the whistle to power a small radio transmitter to relay a basic signal - for example, a distress call. First, the paper discusses the current literature in energy harvesting from acoustic resonance. Next, the concept of an active whistle is presented. Next, results from energy harvesting experiments conducted on conventional and ultrasonic whistles undergoing human-actuation and actuation by a pressure-regulated air supply are presented. The maximum power density of the conventional whistle actuated by a human at 100 dB sound pressure level is $98.1{\mu}W/cm^3$.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.119-125
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• 2019

Piezoelectric energy harvesting technology is attracting attention, as it can be used to convert more accessible mechanical energy resources to periodic electricity. Recent developments in the field of piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) are associated with nanocomposites made from inorganic piezoelectric nanomaterials and organic elastomers. Here, we used the $BaTiO_3$ nanoparticles and piezoelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) polymeric matrix to fabricate the nanocomposites-based PEH to improve the output performance of PEHs. The piezoelectric nanocomposite is produced by dispersing the inorganic piezo-ceramic nanoparticles inside an organic piezo-polymer and subsequently spin-coat it onto a metal plate. The fabricated organic-inorganic piezoelectric nanocomposite-based PEH harvested the output voltage of ~1.5 V and current signals of ~90 nA under repeated mechanical pushings: these values are compared to those of energy devices made from non-piezoelectric polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomers and supported by a multiphysics simulation software.