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A Tower-Shaped Three-Dimensional Piezoelectric Energy Harvester for Low-Level and Low-Frequency Vibration

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Abstract

The multiple forms of vibration exist in an ambient environment diffusely and already become a considerable object for energy harvesting. However, how to effectively extract low-level, low-frequency, and multi-directional vibration from the ambient environment is becoming a key issue in the field of energy harvesting. To solve this issue, a tower-shaped piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (TS-PVEH) is reported. Finite element simulation indicates that TS-PVEH works in two fundamental modes, i.e., its in-plane and out-of-plane vibration modes. Meanwhile, simulation results show that the natural frequency of TS-PVEH is 3.39 Hz, 3.40 Hz, and 11.50 Hz, respectively; and the experiments also verified that. By virtue of the tower structure of TS-PVEH, the device is pretty sensitive to three-dimensional vibration. At a low level of acceleration 1 m/s2, the maximum load power of TS-PVEH is 65.8 µW in out-of-plane mode and 17.2 µW in in-plane mode, respectively. Furthermore, the effects of the PVDF connection mode on the output performance of TS-PVEH were studied in detail, and comparative experimental results show that a reasonable connection of PVDF can improve energy harvesting efficiency. The proposed TS-PVEH is expected to be used to scavenge energy from multi-dimensional, low-level, and low-frequency vibrations that present in an ambient environment.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61671017), Excellent Youth Talent Support Program in Colleges and Universities of Anhui Province in China (gxyqZD2018004), Provincial Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Higher Education Institution of China (KJ2019A0016, KJ2016A787), Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (1908085MF198, 1508085ME72), Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Pulsed Power Laser Technology (No. SKL2018KF04).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics and Materials Science, Energy Materials and Devices Key Lab of Anhui Province for Photoelectric Conversion, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui, 230601, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoxiang Wei, Haibo Zhao, Junjie Yu, Yiming Zhong, Yanlin Liao, Shiwei Shi & Peihong Wang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Pulsed Power Laser Technology, Hefei, 230037, People’s Republic of China

    Yanlin Liao

  3. Key Laboratory of Structure and Functional Regulation of Hybrid Materials, Ministry of Education, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui, 230601, People’s Republic of China

    Peihong Wang

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  1. Xiaoxiang Wei
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  2. Haibo Zhao
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Correspondence to Peihong Wang.

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Wei, X., Zhao, H., Yu, J. et al. A Tower-Shaped Three-Dimensional Piezoelectric Energy Harvester for Low-Level and Low-Frequency Vibration. Int. J. of Precis. Eng. and Manuf.-Green Tech. 8, 1537–1550 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40684-020-00281-9

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