Design and simulation of piezoelectric cantilever beam based on mechanical vibration for energy harvesting application

This paper presents design and simulation of a piezoelectric cantilever beam for energy harvesting using mechanical ambient vibration. Ambient vibration energy used by the developed piezoelectric cantilever beam can be converted into electrical energy using piezoelectric effect as a piezoelectric energy harvester. The piezoelectric cantilever beam was consisted of copper substrate, two piezoelectric layers, and a base. The two piezoelectric layers were placed at the top and bottom faces of the copper substrate. The 3D design of the beam was performed by using SolidWorks. The simulation of the piezoelectric harvester was performed by COMSOL Multiphysics where Finite Element Method (FEM) was used. During the analysis, mechanical and electrical properties of the energy harvester were analysed. In the mechanical properties analysis, maximum vertical displacement of 70.9 µm and maximum stress of 7.96×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">5</sup> N/m <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> were obtained at resonant frequency of 345.75 Hz. A maximum output power of 14.85 µw and voltage of 595.5 mV was obtained from the harvester at 12.6 kΩ under the acceleration of 1 g (g = 9.81 m/s <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ) at resonant frequency of 345.75 Hz. This energy harvester can be used for numerous purpose in the field of sensors and wireless sensor networks.