A Shape memory alloy - piezoelectric composite beam for thermal energy harvesting: Numerical modeling

Shape memory alloys (SMA) usually exhibit one-way shape memory effect, allowing the alloy which is upon a cyclic thermal loading to return to its original shape after heating beyond the transformation temperature. Piezoelectric materials also have the ability to convert mechanical strain into voltage or current. In this paper, investigation for analyzing a composite cantilever beam comprising of two layers is done with finite element method using ABAQUS in which one of the layers has shape memory effect, and another one has piezoelectric effect. In this study, the effect of pre-strain on thermal energy harvesting is investigated. The beam is subjected to different fluctuating temperature, and then we obtain results such as phase transformation strain, displacement and the output voltage. Regarding the results, we conclude that for large pre-strains (۱% and ۲%), the higher the maximum temperature is applied, the greater piezoelectric voltage, larger displacements and higher phase transformation strains are derived. But for small pre-strain (۰.۲%) no considerable change is observed.

Keywords:

shape memory alloy , one-way shape memory effect , piezoelectric materials , energy harvesting