1 research outputs found
Energy Harvesting based on the Hybridisation of two Smart Materials
Recently, there has been an increased demand for power harvesting as a source of providing
renewable energy. One of the most promising technologies due to their high power densities are
piezoelectric devices, harvesting vibrational energy. There has been extensive research done in the
area of energy harvesting using smart materials. However, the majority of this work is dedicated to
the application of one type of smart material, such as piezoelectric or shape memory alloy. The aim of
this paper is to develop a completely novel concept of a hybrid device combining piezoelectric and
shape-memory alloy effects. The resulting device has a strong potential for miniaturisation and
practical biomedical applications in environments characterised by thermal fluctuations. Both finite
element and analytical models were developed to describe the dynamic behaviour of this innovative
device. Both models predicted parametric behaviour for an input frequency of 988 Hz. Performance
of the device was comparable to existing energy harvesting devices. The limitations and benefits of
each modelling approach are also discussed