Dynamics of Phononic Materials and Structures: Historical Origins, Recent Progress, and Future Outlook

High-Performance Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters and Their Applications

The last decade has witnessed significant advances in energy harvesting technologies as a possible alternative to provide a continuous power supply for small, low-power devices in applications, such as wireless sensing, data transmission, actuation, and medical implants. Piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) has been a salient topic in the literature and has attracted widespread attention from researchers due to its advantages of simple architecture, high power density, and good scalability. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the state-of-the-art of piezoelectric energy harvesting. Various key aspects to improve the overall performance of a PEH device are discussed, including basic fundamentals and configurations, materials and fabrication, performance enhancement mechanisms, applications, and future outlooks.

A comprehensive review on piezoelectric energy harvesting technology: Materials, mechanisms, and applications

Energy harvesting technologies have been explored by researchers for more than two decades as an alternative to conventional power sources (e.g. batteries) for small-sized and low-power electronic devices. The limited life-time and necessity for periodic recharging or replacement of batteries has been a consistent issue in portable, remote, and implantable devices. Ambient energy can usually be found in the form of solar energy, thermal energy, and vibration energy. Amongst these energy sources, vibration energy presents a persistent presence in nature and manmade structures. Various materials and transduction mechanisms have the ability to convert vibratory energy to useful electrical energy, such as piezoelectric, electromagnetic, and electrostatic generators. Piezoelectric transducers, with their inherent electromechanical coupling and high power density compared to electromagnetic and electrostatic transducers, have been widely explored to generate power from vibration energy sources. A topical review of piezoelectric energy harvesting methods was carried out and published in this journal by the authors in 2007. Since 2007, countless researchers have introduced novel materials, transduction mechanisms, electrical circuits, and analytical models to improve various aspects of piezoelectric energy harvesting devices. Additionally, many researchers have also reported novel applications of piezoelectric energy harvesting technology in the past decade. While the body of literature in the field of piezoelectric energy harvesting has grown significantly since 2007, this paper presents an update to the authors' previous review paper by summarizing the notable developments in the field of piezoelectric energy harvesting through the past decade.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-665X/ab36e4/pdf

A review of energy harvesting using piezoelectric materials: state-of-the-art a decade later (2008–2018)

Strong Formulation Finite Element Method Based on Differential Quadrature: A Survey

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering 2013, WCE 2013

Guided by the recent advances in solid-state research in periodic materials, a new type of layered periodic foundation consisting of concrete and rubber layers is experimentally investigated in this paper. The distinct feature of this new foundation is its frequency band gaps. When the frequency contents of a wave fall within the range of the frequency band gaps, the wave, and hence its energy, will be weakened or cannot propagate through the foundation, so the foundation itself can serve as a vibration isolator. Using the theory of elastodynamics and the Bloch–Floquet theorem, the mechanism of band gaps in periodic composites is presented, and a finite element model is built to show the isolation characteristic of a finite dimensional periodic foundation. Based on these analytical results, moreover, a scaled model frame and a periodic foundation were fabricated and shake table tests of the frame on the periodic foundation were performed. Ambient, strong and harmonic vibration attenuations are found when the exciting frequencies fall into the band gaps.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0964-1726/21/11/112003/pdf

Periodic materials-based vibration attenuation in layered foundations: experimental validation

Attenuation zones of periodic pile barriers and its application in vibration reduction for plane waves

In the present paper, the problem of a functionally graded piezoelectric cantilever beam subjected to different loadings is studied. The piezoelectric beam is characterized by continuously graded properties for one elastic parameter and the material density. A pair of stress and induction functions in the form of polynomials is proposed and determined. Based on these functions, a set of analytical solutions for the beam subjected to different loadings is obtained. As particular cases, series of solutions for some canonical problems can be directly obtained from the solutions of the present paper, such as for the problems of a piezoelectric cantilever beam with constant body force or without body forces, etc.

Zhifei Shi

Papers

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering 2013, WCE 2013

Periodic materials-based vibration attenuation in layered foundations: experimental validation

Attenuation zones of periodic pile barriers and its application in vibration reduction for plane waves

Functionally graded piezoelectric cantilever beam under load

Exact solutions of heterogeneous elastic hollow cylinders