• 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.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.274-281
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• 2005

A new resonant pulse converter for energy harvesting is proposed. The converter transfers energy from a low-voltage AC current to a battery. The low-voltage AC current source is an equivalent of the piezoelectric generator, which converts the mechanical energy to the electric energy. The converter consists of a full-bridge rectifier having four N-type MOSFETs and a boost converter haying N-type MOSFET and P-type MOSFET instead of diode. Switching of MOSFETs utilizes the capability of the $3^{rd}$ regional operation. The operational principles and switching method for the power control of the converter are investigated with the consideration of effects of the parasitic capacitances of MOSFETs. Simulation and experiment are performed to prove the analysis of the converter operation and to show the possibility of the $\mu$W energy harvesting.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.287-303
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• 2018

Applications of energy harvesting from mechanical vibrations is becoming popular but the full potential of such applications is yet to be explored. This paper addresses this issue by considering an application of energy harvesting for the dual objective of serving as an indicator of structural health monitoring (SHM) and extent of control. Variation of harvested energy from an undamaged baseline is employed for this purpose and the concept is illustrated by implementing it for active vibrations of a pipe structure. Theoretical and experimental analyses are carried out to determine the energy harvesting potential from undamaged and damaged conditions. The use of energy harvesting as indicator for control is subsequently investigated, considering the effect of the introduction of a tuned mass damper (TMD). It is found that energy harvesting can be used for the detection and monitoring of the location and magnitude of damage occurring within a pipe structure. Additionally, the harvested energy acts as an indicator of the extent of reduction of vibration of pipes when a TMD is attached. This paper extends the range of applications of energy harvesting devices for the monitoring of built infrastructure and illustrates the vast potential of energy harvesters as smart sensors.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.252-257
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• 2015

This paper investigates the concept and implementation of an energy harvesting device using a ferrofluid sloshing movement to generate an electromotive force (EMF). Ferrofluids are often applied to energy harvesting devices because they have both magnetic properties and fluidity, and they behave similarly to a soft ferromagnetic substance. In addition, a ferrofluid can change its shape freely and generate an EMF from small vibrations. The existing energy harvesting techniques, for example those using piezoelectric and thermoelectric devices, generate minimal electric power, as low as a few micro-watts. Through flow analysis of ferrofluids and examination of the magnetic circuit characteristics of the resultant electromagnetic system, an energy harvester model based on an electromagnetic field generated by a ferrofluid is developed and proposed. The feasibility of the proposed scheme is demonstrated and its EMF characteristics are discussed based on experimental data.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.487-494
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• 2021

Piezoelectric generators use direct piezoelectric effects that convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. Many studies were attempted to fabricate piezoelectric generators using piezoelectrics such as ZnO, PZT, PVDF. However, these various inorganic/organic piezoelectric materials are not suitable for bio-implantable devices due to problems such as brittleness, toxicity, bio-incompatibility, bio-degradation. Thus, in this paper, piezoelectric generators were prepared using a silk fibroin film which is bio-compatible by dip-coating method. The silk fibroin films are a mixed state of silk I and silk II having stable β-sheet type structures and shows the d₃₃ value of 8~10 pC/N. There was a difference in output voltages according to the thickness. The silk fibroin generators, coated 10 times and 20 times, revealed the power density of 16.07 μW/cm² and 35.31 μW/cm² using pushing tester, respectively. The silk fibroin generators are sensitive to various pressure levels, which may arise from body motions such as finger tapping, foot pressing, wrist shaking, etc. The silk fibroin piezoelectric generators with bio-compatibility shows the applicability as a low-power implantable piezoelectric generator, healthcare monitoring service, and biotherapy devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.484-487
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• 2015

This paper describes a dual-input battery charger with MPPT control using photovoltaic and piezoelectric energy. Each energy is harvested from photovoltaic cells and piezoelectric cells and is stored to each capacitor. The battery voltage is boosted by charger block and two energy sources are used as input to charge battery capacitor. A DC-DC boost converter is designed to boost the battery voltage, and inductor sharing technique is employed such that only one inductor is required. The time division ratio for piezoelectric cell and photovoltaic cell is set to 8:1. The proposed circuit is designed in a 0.35um CMOS process technology. The condition of battery capacitor is managed by battery management block and the battery voltage can be boosted up to 3V. The maximum efficiency of the designed entire system is 88.56%, and the chip area including pads is $1230um{\times}1330um$.

• 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.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.89-94
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• 2018

This paper investigated the design method of the smart sensor for implementing IoT (Internet of Things) service. The power supply of sensor consistently acquisting data is based on the energy harvesting technology and designed with piezoelectric transducer not affected by surrounding circumstances. The wireless communication interface for the transmission of data is designed with BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy). BLE is highly adequate wireless communication technology for low power consumption and short distance wireless communication. The main application of BLE is beacon whose usage range is extended from O2O (Online to Offline) service, navigator based on indoor positioning technology, and anti-theft/lost child prevention service to mobile game. This paper studied the method to extend wireless coverage for complementing the short wireless transmission distance of BLE. The wireless sensor network based on CATV network is proposed for the easy construction of BLE sensor network and extended wireless coverage.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 2019

This paper deals with the operation of a hybrid power generation system made with photovoltaic cells and piezoelectric materials. The system can produce power from the wind as well as from the sun subject to their availability. Irrespective of the largeness of their power production, the power developed by both generators (i.e., phtovoltaic cells and piezoelectric cells) were combined and stored before it was applied to a load. Especially, the AC power (current) developed from each piezoelectric generator was converted by a full wave bridge rectifier and then combined prior to its storage in a capacitor. It was observed that the system can produce a maximum output power of 6.49 mW at loading resistance of $100{\Omega}$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.286-289
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• 2012

In this paper, we have proposed piezoelectric energy harvester employing the pillar structure with the diameter size of 500 um. So we have selected the Su-8 photo-resist and modified lithography process to manufacture the pillar structure with height above the $500{\mu}m$. Simultaneously, we tried to make a comparative study to use ceramic bulk - polymer structure In this paper, we will report the process and properties of micro pillar structure based on the PMN-PZT ($Pb(Mg_{1/3}Nb_{2/3})O_3-PbZrTiO_3$) materials. Finally, We will propose a method for generating electrical energy with a piezoelectric element using vibration, an energy source can be obtained from the "clean" energy.