Parametric study on a collocated PZT beam vibration absorber and power harvester

The parametric effects of a PZT beam that is simultaneously used as a vibration absorber and a power harvester were investigated in this study. A cantilever beam paved with PZT layers and with added tip mass has been widely used as a harvester or sometimes as a Dynamic vibration absorber (DVA). However, the beam is rarely considered a collocated device. In this study, the first step was theoretical derivation of a distributed beam covered with bimorph PZT layers. Then, the beam was attached to a 1DOF vibratory main system. Two indicators for vibration absorption and power harvesting were defined. Numerical results demonstrated that the lumped mass ratio favored both of the abilities, but that the DVA mass ratio influenced these two abilities in exactly the opposite way. The conjunction of a harvester circuit into a DVA shifted its resonance frequency up to 5 % (an extreme case of open circuit R -> a). Simultaneous power harvesting diminished the absorption capability up to 35 % for each set of mass ratios. To achieve the maximum degree of power harvesting, a corresponding load resistance that somewhat increases with the lumped mass ratio is applied. Experimental results verified the existence of the best load resistance, but the measured harvested curve was lower than the theoretical calculation because of structure damping and deviations of PZT material properties.