A joint-nested structure piezoelectric energy harvester for high-performance wind-induced vibration energy harvesting

The indirect-excitation piezoelectric wind energy harvesters have shown great potential in providing power to sensor network nodes as well as wireless electronic devices. To improve the weak power generation performance of the existing indirect-excitation harvesters, this paper proposes a joint-nested structure piezoelectric energy harvester (JNS-PWEH) for high-performance wind-induced vibration energy harvesting. The joint-nested structure is composed of a piezoelectric transducer, a cylindrical shell, and a rectangle-shaped spoiler. Unlike the most existing approaches adopted to enhance the energy harvesting via modifying the structural configuration of the shell, this JNS-PWEH realized a transition of poor-performance vortex-induced vibration to high-energy galloping vibration by introducing a downstream rectangle-shaped spoiler to interfere with the vortices induced by the shell. In this way, the vibration-enhanced shell will drive the piezoelectric transducer mounted inside to oscillate significantly, thus achieving indirect excitation and performance enhancement. The feasibility of the structure and principle of the JNS-PWEH was demonstrated via experimental studies. The results showed that the maximum overall voltage output performance of the JNS-PWEH was significantly improved by 1040% compared to the conventional single-cylinder PWEH due to the introduction of the joint nesting structure. At this point, the JNS-PWEH could output power of 2.22 mW at 300 k Omega and easily lit up at least 126 LEDs in 6.6 m/s, as well as displayed excellent charging speed in charging capacitors. On the other hand, it was demonstrated that the output performance of the JNS-PWEH could be enhanced by adjusting the width of the rectangle-shaped spoiler and the gap length between the joint-nested structure. In general, it illustrates a great benefit of the joint nested structure in enhancing the indirect-excitation PWEHs, which is expected to accelerate the practical application of the indirect-excitation PWEHs.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a joint-nested structure piezoelectric energy harvester (JNS-PWEH) to improve the weak power generation performance of existing harvesters. Experimental results show that the performance of the JNS-PWEH has been significantly improved and further optimization of the structure can enhance the output performance. Therefore, the joint nested structure is of great importance in enhancing indirect-excitation piezoelectric energy harvesters.