Parametric investigation of a piezoelectric energy harvester with elastic support

Based on Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, an electromechanically coupled model is developed for investigating the performance of a piezoelectric bimorph energy harvester (PBEH). The PBEH is composed of two piezoelectric layers and an embedded metallic substrate. In this analysis, the PBEH is fixed at one end and the other end is supported by a spring. The electric energy is converted from ambient vibration energy by driving the PBEH in flexural vibration mode. The advantage of this PBEH is that the resonance frequency can be tuned by adjusting the stiffness of the spring. An analytical solution is obtained for a sandwiched, electromechanically coupled beam. The parametric analysis, such as the stiffness of the spring and material properties is carried out. Numerical results are presented. The investigations are helpful in exploiting high performance piezoelectric energy harvester.