Mechanical Design of Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters

Book excerpt: Mechanical Design of Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters: Generating Electricity from Human Walking provides the state-of-the-art, recent mechanical designs of piezoelectric energy harvesters based on piezoelectric stacks. The book discusses innovative mechanism designs for energy harvesting from multidimensional force excitation, such as human walking, which offers higher energy density. Coverage includes analytical modeling, optimal design, simulation study, prototype fabrication, and experimental investigation. Detailed examples of their analyses and implementations are provided. The book's authors provide a unique perspective on this field, primarily focusing on novel designs for PZT Energy harvesting in biomedical engineering as well as in integrated multi-stage force amplification frame. This book presents force-amplification compliant mechanism design and force direction-transmission mechanism design. It explores new mechanism design approaches using piezoelectric materials and permanent magnets. Readers can expect to learn how to design new mechanisms to realize multidimensional energy harvesting systems. Provides new mechanical designs of piezoelectric energy harvesters for multidimensional force excitation Contains both theoretical and experimental results Fully supported with real-life examples on design, modeling and implementation of piezoelectric energy harvesting devices