Piezoelectric wind power harnessing – an overview

As fossil energy resources deplete, wind energy gains ever more importance. Recently, piezoelectric energy harvesting methods are emerging with the advancements in piezoelectric materials and its storage elements. Piezoelectric materials can be utilized to convert kinetic energy to electrical energy. Utilization of piezoelectric wind harvesting is a rather new means to convert renewable wind energy to electricity. Piezoelectric generators are typically low cost and easy to maintain. This work illustrates an overview of piezoelectric wind harvesting technology. In wind harvesting, piezoelectric material choice is of the first order of importance. Due to their strain rate, robustness is a concern. For optimum energy harvesting efficiency resonant frequency of the selected materials and overall system configuration plays important role. In this work, existing piezoelectric wind generators are grouped and presented in following categories: leaf type, rotary type, rotary to linear type and beam type wind generators

Natural frequency of beams with embedded piezoelectric sensors and actuators

A mathematical model is developed to study the natural frequency of beams with embedded piezoelectric sensors and actuators. The piezoelectric sensors/actuators in a non-piezoelectric matrix (host beam) are analyzed as two inhomogeneity problems by using Eshelby’s equivalent inclusion method. The natural frequency of the beam is determined from the variational principle in Rayleigh quotient form, which is expressed as functions of the elastic strain energy and dielectric energy of the piezoelectric sensors/actuators. The Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and Rayleigh-Ritz approximation technique are used in the present analysis. Parametric studies show that the size, volume fraction and location of the piezoelectric inclusions significantly influence the natural frequency of the beam

Power generation by using piezoelectric transducer with bending mechanism support

This paper presents about power generation by using piezoelectric transducer with bending mechanism support. In this study, bending mechanism is developed by employing 3D printer technology. This 3D model is used as a support for a piezoelectric transducer during deflection or bending process. During deflection condition, stress that applied on the piezoelectric transducer will generate electrical energy. The 3D model helps the piezoelectric transducer to produce more voltage output. A finger press test used as evaluation method for the voltage output of the piezoelectric transducer. The experiment is tested by varying three different 3D model with the different diameter for the middle hole for each of the model. A round shape of the piezoelectric transducer with size of 50 mm in diameter is used to conduct the experiment. Thus, when the piezoelectric transducer placed on the 3D model with 0 mm in diameter of middle hole will producing 5.4 V voltage output. However, 3D model with 30 mm diameter of middle hole, the output increases up to 19.0 V. The output voltage for piezoelectric transducer reached its highest voltage when placed on the 3D model with middle hole of 40 mm which is 34.4 V. This bending mechanism can be used to increase the output of piezoelectric transducer as it applied underneath footstep tile at crowded area to harvest the energy produced from walking activities. The power generated can be used to power up various electronic devices

Nanotexture influence of BaTiO3 particles on piezoelectric behaviour of PA 11/BaTiO3 nanocomposites

The piezoelectric activity of a hybrid ferroelectric nanocomposite, i.e. polyamide 11/barium titanate (BT), has been investigated for different loadings of BT particles. The BT volume fraction (/) was ranging from 0.024 to 0.4 with a particle size of 50, 100, 300 and 700 nm. The influence of polarization mode on the piezoelectric behaviour has been studied. The magnitude of the poling field used in this study is in the same order of magnitude of the one used for bulk BT i.e. significantly lower than for piezoelectric polymers. The optimum piezoelectric coefficient is reached when the amorphous phase of the polymeric matrix is in the liquid state i.e. for a polarization temperature higher than the glass transition and for time constant allowing macromolecular mobility. The composite piezoelectric activity decreases for particles size lower than 300 nm due to the loss of the tetragonal phase. The nanotexture of these particles has been investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution TEM. A core shell structure has been observed. An increase of the longitudinal piezoelectric strain coefficient d33 with the raising of BT volume fraction was shown. Contrary to inorganic piezoelectric ceramics, the dielectric permittivity of hybrid composites remains moderate; therefore it allows the piezoelectric voltage coefficient of composites to be higher than ceramics

Rotator and extender ferroelectrics: Importance of the shear coefficient to the piezoelectric properties of domain-engineered crystals and ceramics

The importance of a high shear coefficient d15 (or d24) to the piezoelectric properties of domain-engineered and polycrystalline ferroelectrics is discussed. The extent of polarization rotation, as a mechanism of piezoelectric response, is directly correlated to the shear coefficient. The terms "rotator" and "extender" are introduced to distinguish the contrasting behaviors of crystals such as 4mm BaTiO3 and PbTiO3. In "rotator" ferroelectrics, where d15 is high relative to the longitudinal coefficient d33, polarization rotation is the dominant mechanism of piezoelectric response; the maximum longitudinal piezoelectric response is found away from the polar axis. In "extender" ferroelectrics, d15 is low and the collinear effect dominates; the maximum piezoelectric response is found along the polar axis. A variety of 3m, mm2 and 4mm ferroelectrics, with various crystal structures based on oxygen octahedra, are classified in this way. It is shown that the largest piezoelectric anisotropies d15/d33 are always found in 3m crystals; this is a result of the intrinsic electrostrictive anisotropy of the constituent oxygen octahedra. Finally, for a given symmetry, the piezoelectric anisotropy increases close to ferroelectric-ferroelectric phase transitions; this includes morphotropic phase boundaries and temperature induced polymorphic transitions.Comment: accepted in J. Appl. Phy

Calibration of piezoelectric positioning actuators using a reference voltage-to-displacement transducer based on quartz tuning forks

We use a piezoelectric quartz tuning fork to calibrate the displacement of ceramic piezoelectric scanners which are widely employed in scanning probe microscopy. We measure the static piezoelectric response of a quartz tuning fork and find it to be highly linear, non-hysteretic and with negligible creep. These performance characteristics, close to those of an ideal transducer, make quartz transducers superior to ceramic piezoelectric actuators. Furthermore, quartz actuators in the form of a tuning fork have the advantage of yielding static displacements comparable to those of local probe microscope scanners. We use the static displacement of a quartz tuning fork as a reference to calibrate the three axis displacement of a ceramic piezoelectric scanner. Although this calibration technique is a non-traceable method, it can be more versatile than using calibration grids because it enables to characterize the linear and non-linear response of a piezoelectric scanner in a broad range of displacements, spanning from a fraction of a nanometer to hundreds of nanometers. In addition, the creep and the speed dependent piezoelectric response of ceramic scanners can be studied in detail.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure