Vibration piezoelectric energy harvesting

Abstract

Energy harvesting is the conversion of ambient energy present in the environment into electrical energy, which is accumulated and stored for later use. It has the same principle as large-scale renewable energy generation (such as wind or solar power) but it is very different in scale. Kinetic energy harvesting consists in extracting electrical energy from vibration motion by a particular transduction mechanism such as electromagnetic, electrostatic and piezoelectric. Piezoelectric devices are really important for vibration energy harvesting. For this reason, this research is focused on them. The aim of this bachelor project is to analyse one piezoelectric vibrational harvester and how the change on its configuration will affect to its behaviour. In order to reach this, the first step will consist in doing experimental measurements. After that, the model will be reproduced by computer software (in this case ANSYS), with which it will also be compared with another different configuration. Finally, the results will be discussed.