IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v10y2017i8p1122-d106610.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electret Length Optimization of Output Power for Double-End Fixed Beam Out-of-Plane Electret-Based Vibration Energy Harvesters

Author

Listed:
  • Chunhui Gao

    (State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China)

  • Shiqiao Gao

    (State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China)

  • Haipeng Liu

    (State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China)

  • Lei Jin

    (State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China)

  • Junhu Lu

    (State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China)

Abstract

Thanks to miniaturization, it is now possible to imagine self-powered systems that can harvest energy from the environment to produce electrical energy. Out-of-plane electret-based vibration energy harvesters (E-EVHs) are an effective and inexpensive energy harvester type that has attracted much attention. Increasing the capacitance of variable capacitors is an effective way to improve the output power of E-EVHs. In this paper, firstly an accurate capacitance theoretical model of a double-ended fixed beam out-of-plane E-EVHs which has 97% reliability compared with FEM (COMSOL Multiphysics) results is presented. A comparison of capacitance between the double-ended fixed beam structure and a cantilever structure of the same size indicates that the double-ended fixed beam structure has greater capacitance and capacitance variation. We apply this theoretical capacitance model to the mechanical-electrical coupling model of double-ended fixed beam out-of-plane E-EVHs and study harvesters’ output performances for different electret lengths by numerical and experimental method, respectively. There exists an optimal electret length to harvest maximum power in our simulation results. Enhanced electrostatic forces with increasing the electret length emphasizes the soft spring effect, which widens the half power bandwidth and lowers the resonance frequency. Increasing the length of the electret can reduce the resistance of the optimum load. The experimental results show trend consistent with the numerical predictions. The maximum output power can reach 404 µW (134.66 µW/cm 2 /g) at the electret length of 40 mm when the external acceleration and the frequency were 5 m/s 2 and 74 Hz, respectively. The maximum bandwidth reaches 2.5 Hz at the electret length of 60 mm. Therefore, the electret length should be placed between 40 mm and 60 mm, while ensuring a higher output power and also get a larger bandwidth in practical applications.

Suggested Citation

  • Chunhui Gao & Shiqiao Gao & Haipeng Liu & Lei Jin & Junhu Lu, 2017. "Electret Length Optimization of Output Power for Double-End Fixed Beam Out-of-Plane Electret-Based Vibration Energy Harvesters," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-15, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:8:p:1122-:d:106610
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/8/1122/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/8/1122/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ghavami, Mahyar & Azizi, Saber & Ghazavi, Mohammad Reza, 2018. "On the dynamics of a capacitive electret-based micro-cantilever for energy harvesting," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 967-976.
    2. Ming He & Sheng Wang & Xiang Zhong & Mingjie Guan, 2019. "Study of a Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Floor Structure with Force Amplification Mechanism," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-10, September.
    3. Yu, Han & Hou, Chengwei & Shan, Xiaobiao & Zhang, Xingxu & Song, Henan & Zhang, Xiaofan & Xie, Tao, 2022. "A novel seesaw-like piezoelectric energy harvester for low frequency vibration," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(PB).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:8:p:1122-:d:106610. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.