Study on the energy harvesting performance of PE cantilever beam

Harvesting ambient vibration energy through piezoelectric (PE) means is a popular energy harvesting technique. The merit of applying PE means to supply energy for microelectronic devices is that they can reduce the battery weight and possibly make the device self-powered by harvesting mechanical energy. This investigation will examine the energy generating performance of miniature PE cantilever beam through theoretical modeling, simulation and experiment testing. Through the theoretical analysis of the piezoelectric energy harvesting structure, the expression of open circuit voltage output is obtained. Using ANSYS software, the working performance of piezoelectric cantilever beam is analyzed. On the basis of theoretical analysis and simulation optimization, a set of experimental system is established to test the energy harvesting performance of the piezoelectric cantilever beam. The testing result shows that the harvested energy by the piezoelectric cantilever beam could supply electrical power to some micro electrical devices.