Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting from Direct Buoyancy Force

In today s world, there is a strong tendency toward using renewable energy due to a significant decrease in fossil fuels resources. Recently, many researchers are doing research on piezoelectric energy harvesting. Considering this point that piezoelectric needs an oscillatory load for producing electricity, any type of ambient vibration can prepare this opportunity to use piezoelectric for energy harvesting. In this paper, a mechanism has been designed which converts the ocean waves into an oscillatory load by a cubic buoyant. In fact, buoyancy force has been used in order to induce a cylindrical piezoelectric. In this mechanism, the cubic buoyant has been fixed by a rod which is connected to the piezoelectric surface in order to prevent the buoyant from horizontal movement. When an ocean wave passes through the mechanism, the submerged buoyant creates an oscillatory load according to Archimedes buoyancy force principle. A finite element simulation has been done to derive the strain versus time, and the output power has been calculated by mathematical modeing. The simulation has been done for two types of piezoelectric which are induced by the frequency of 1 and 2 Hz. The effect of piezoelectric dimension are discussed, and the output electricity up to 10 µW for the frequency of 2 Hz is generated by using a cylindrical piezoelectric with diameter and height of 3 cm and 10 cm, respectively.

Keywords:

Energy harvesting , Piezoelectric , Buoyancy force