Ultra-wide bandwidth improvement of piezoelectric energy harvesters through electrical inductance coupling

Abstract

The design and analysis of innovative ultra-wide bandwidth piezoelectric energy harvesters are deeply investigated. An electrical inductance is considered in the harvester’s circuit to be connected in series or parallel to a load resistance. A lumped-parameter model is used to model the electromechanical response of the harvester when subjected to harmonic excitations. A linear comprehensive analysis is performed to investigate the effects of an electrical inductance on the coupled frequencies and damping of the harvester. It is shown that including an electrical inductance connected in series or in parallel to an electrical load resistance can result in the appearance of a second coupled frequency of electrical type. The results show that the inclusion of an inductance may give the opportunity to tune one of the coupled frequencies of mechanical and electrical types to the available excitation frequency in the environment. Using the gradient method, an optimization analysis is then performed to determine the optimum values of the electrical inductance and load resistance that maximize the harvested power. It is demonstrated that, for each excitation frequency, there is a combination of optimum values of the electrical inductance and resistance in such a way an optimum constant value of the harvested power is found. Numerical analysis is then performed to show the importance of considering an additional inductance in the harvester’s circuitry in order to design broadband energy harvesters. The results show that the presence of the second coupled frequency of electrical type due to the inductance gives the possibility to design optimal broadband inductive-resistive piezoelectric energy harvesters with minimum displacement due to shunt damping effect.