High-efficiency piezoelectric energy harvester for vehicle-induced bridge vibrations: Theory and experiment

Massive dissipated vibration energy of railway bridges is a sustainable energy source that can be harvested by piezoelectric energy harvesting technology. It provides a promising solution for powering bridge health monitoring systems. However, it remains challenging to achieve high energy output for the harvested energy to be of utility value. An efficient dynamic-magnified piezoelectric energy harvester (D-M PEH) is proposed, which reaches an energy output as high as 0.55 W under a harmonic acceleration excitation of unit amplitude and low frequency. The high energy output is achieved by incorporating a dynamic amplifier as well as several composite piezoelectric transducer cells (PT-cells) with d33-mode. The lumped parameters of the PT-cell are theoretically derived by considering the stacking deformation caused by the inverse piezoelectric effect. The energy harvesting performances of the D-M PEH are then investigated both theoretically and experimentally. When a train passes through the bridge, the maximum output voltage and power of the proposed D-M PEH can reach 603 V and 0.728 W, respectively. The output power is much higher than that of reported piezoelectric energy harvesters installed on railway bridges. The prototype system holds great potential to be part of the smart railway.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the problem of harvesting vibration energy from railway bridges and proposes an efficient dynamic-magnified piezoelectric energy harvester. Theoretical and experimental studies show that this energy harvester has high energy output, as well as high maximum output voltage and power.