Impact Based Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting: Effect of Single Step’s Force and Velocity

Abstract

This paper reports an impact driven energy harvesting via employing a piezoelectric ceramic disc, in which a usable alternating electrical energy has been harvested via the mechanical impact of the human weight on the surface of a piezoelectric plate transducer. A prototype of a single human step piezoelectric plate impact driven harvester consisting of a piezoelectric transducer disc was tested on a hydraulic pressing machine with variable forces and impact velocities. In this experiment, a piezoelectric ceramic disc with a size of pallet 44mm in diameter and 10mm in thickness was able to transform the mechanical impact into an average output power of up to 14.5μW across a resistive load of 500kΩ, when a force of 0.75 kN with a velocity of 600mm/min is applied on it