Brillouin-zone characterization of piezoelectric material intrinsic energy-harvesting availability

Patrick, J., Adhikari, S. and Hussein, M. I. (2021) Brillouin-zone characterization of piezoelectric material intrinsic energy-harvesting availability. Smart Materials and Structures, 30(8), 085022. (doi: 10.1088/1361-665X/ac0c2c)

Abstract

Vibration energy harvesting is an emerging technology that enables electric power generation using piezoelectric devices. The prevailing approach for characterization of the energy-harvesting capacity in these devices is to consider a finite structure operating under forced vibration conditions. Here, we present an alternative framework whereby the intrinsic energy-harvesting characteristics are formally quantified independent of the forcing and the structure size. In doing so, we consider the notion of a piezoelectric material rather than a finite piezoelectric structure. As an example, we consider a suspended piezoelectric phononic crystal to which we apply Bloch's theorem and formally quantify the energy-harvesting characteristics within the span of the unit cell's Brillouin zone (BZ). In the absence of shunted piezoelectric circuits, the wavenumber-dependent dissipation of the phononic crystal is calculated and shown to increase, as expected, with the level of prescribed damping. With the inclusion of the piezoelectric elements, the wavenumber-dependent dissipation rises by an amount proportional to the energy available for harvest which upon integration over the BZ and summing over all branches yields a quantity representative of the net available energy for harvesting. We investigate both monoatomic and diatomic phononic crystals and piezoelectric elements with and without an inductor. The paper concludes with a parametric design study yielding optimal piezoelectric element properties in terms of the proposed intrinsic energy-harvesting availability measure.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Adhikari, Professor Sondipon
• Authors: Patrick, J., Adhikari, S., and Hussein, M. I.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Infrastructure and Environment
• Journal Name: Smart Materials and Structures
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• ISSN: 0964-1726
• ISSN (Online): 1361-665X
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Smart Materials and Structures 30:085022
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License