Design Study of a Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Device to Generating Higher Electrical Power From 3-axis Machine Tool Vibrations

This paper presents the design of a piezoelectric energy harvester device from vibrations of a 3-axis machine tool. Vibration frequency peak of a 3-axis machine tool is around 70 Hz with 10 m/s2 acceleration magnitude. Since energy harvesting devices with epitaxial piezoelectric film enable high normalized output power, low optimal resistive load, and high output current, so we focused on modeling and design of an epitaxial PZT microcantilever beam for vibration energy harvesting. We used a proof mass on the cantilever beam and found optimized energy harvester dimensions, and then optimized applied resistive load to maximizing the normalized output power.The highest output power generated by the epitaxial PZT microcantilever beam with a Nickel (Ni) proof mass which resonance frequency is around 70 Hz can reach up to 13.5mw/cm3 at 38 kΩ of load resistor at 10 m/s2 acceleration amplitude that is high enough to use as an electrical power source for some sensors of a 3-axis machine tool.

Keywords:

energy harvesting , piezoelectric , microcantilever beam , Electrical power , finite element modeling