Numerical simulations of piezoelectric MEMS energy harvesters

Author

Gafforelli, Giacomo ; Ardito, Raffaele ; Corigliano, Alberto ; Valzasina, Carlo ; Procopio, Francesco

Author_Institution

Dept. of Civil & Environ. Eng., Politec. di Milano, Milan, Italy

fYear

2014

fDate

7-9 April 2014

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

9

Abstract

The application of piezoelectric materials in MEMS energy harvesters is continuously increasing, with the immediate corollary of a fundamental need for improved computational tools in order to optimize the performances at the design level. In this paper, a refined, yet simple model is proposed with the aim of providing fast and insightful solutions to the multi-physics problem of piezoelectric energy harvesting. The main objective is to retain a simple structural model (Euler-Bernoulli beam), with the inclusion of effects connected to the actual three-dimensional shape of the device. A thorough presentation of the analytical model is presented, along with its validation by comparison with the results of full 3D computations.

Keywords

beams (structures); energy harvesting; micromechanical devices; numerical analysis; piezoelectric devices; 3D device shape; Euler-Bernoulli beam; computational tools; multiphysics problem; numerical simulations; performance optimization; piezoelectric MEMS energy harvesters; piezoelectric materials; structural model; Abstracts; Electrodes; Stress;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Thermal, mechanical and multi-physics simulation and experiments in microelectronics and microsystems (eurosime), 2014 15th international conference on

Conference_Location

Ghent

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-4791-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EuroSimE.2014.6813825

Filename

6813825