Development of a tree-shaped wind power system using piezoelectric materials

This paper reports an experimental investigation in designing a tree-shaped wind power system using piezoelectric materials. The proposed system has been designed to produce power if there is any wind strong enough to cause any bending in the energy converting elements, i.e. piezoelectric materials. Two different kinds of piezoelectric materials are used in this study to produce power by scavenging energy from the wind. The soft flexible one is used to make the leaf clement, whereas the hard one is applied to the trunk portion of the tree requiring rather strong winds to generate any power. Although small, each leaf deems to play the role of a power producer as currents are continuously trickling down to a storage battery installed at the bottom of the system. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.