HARVESTING VIBRATION ENERGY BY A Y-SHAPED INVERTED PIEZOELECTRIC BEAM

Abstract

To promote the performance of harvesting perpendicularly moving base, a Y-shaped inverted cantilever piezoelectric beam is proposed, which has a tip mass at each limb. When the beam is excited randomly in the vertical direction, the dynamic instability could be activated. In this case there appears energy transferring in frequency domain. Thus the beam takes a largeamplitude oscillation and generates a large output voltage. The prototype was fabricated and the validation experiment was carried out. The results show that the occurrence of dynamic instability induced by excitation could generate large-amplitude and thus result in a large output. The Y-shape harvester is preferred in scavenging perpendicular vibration energy.