On Mechanical Modeling of Cantilevered Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesters

Cantilevered beams with piezoceramic (PZT) layers are the most commonly investigated type of vibration energy harvesters. A frequently used modeling approach is the single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) modeling of the harvester beam as it allows simple expressions for the electrical outputs. In the literature, since the base excitation on the harvester beam is assumed to be harmonic, the well known SDOF relation is employed for mathematical modeling. In this study, it is shown that the commonly accepted SDOF harmonic base excitation relation may yield highly inaccurate results for predicting the motion of cantilevered beams and bars. First, the response of a cantilevered Euler—Bernoulli beam to general base…

• MU
  Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative
• AF
  Air Force Office of Scientific Research