Experiment and modeling of a two-dimensional piezoelectric energy harvester

Vibration energy harvesting using piezoelectric materials has attracted much research interest in recent years. Numerous efforts have been devoted to improving the efficiency of vibration energy harvesters and broadening their bandwidths. In most reported literature, energy harvesters are designed to harvest energy from vibration source with a specific excitation direction. However, a practical environmental vibration source may include multiple components from different directions. Thus, it is an important concern to design a vibration energy harvester to be adaptive to multiple excitation directions. In this article, a piezoelectric energy harvester with frame configuration is proposed to achieve two-dimensional (2D) vibration energy harvesting. The harvester works in two fundamental modes, i.e., its vertical and horizontal vibration modes. By tuning the structural parameters, the harvester can capture vibration energy from arbitrary directions in a 2D plane. Experimental studies are carried out to prove its feasibility. A finite element model and an equivalent circuit model are built to simulate the system and validate the experiment outcomes. The study of this 2D energy harvester indicates its promising potential in practical vibration scenarios.