Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester

Visakh.V1 , M.R.Baiju2 Dept. of Electronics and Communication College of Engineering ,Thiruvananthapuram.

visakh.l.vijayan87@gmail.com1 , mrbaiju@gmail.com2

Abstract
Vibration energy harvesting can be done efciently only when the resonant frequency of the energy harvesting device matches with the frequency of the ambient vibrations. We propose a piezoelectric energy harvester in the form of a cantilever beam attached to an anchor at one end and a free hanging proof mass at the other end . Aluminium Nitride(AlN) is used as the piezoelectric material due to its high piezoelectric coefcients. The resonant frequency of our divice is 120 Hz, which is the vibration frequency of most machines. Simulation results from Coventor MEMS+ and Matlab Simulink show that the device vibrates with an amplitude of 1.5 m, given an acceleration of 1g at the resonant frequency.

1. Introduction
Wireless Sensor Networks(WSN) are going to become an indispensable component in our environment for applications like automobile tire pressure sensors, temperature sensors in buildings, monitoring crack formation in aircrafts,blood pressure monitoring in patients etc [7] [5] [6].High energy storage density batteries like lithium ion batteries has been the primary source for powering the WSN nodes [5].But the bulky size of batteries and the need for replacement or recharging has hindered the extensive applications of WSN in various domains. As a result, the idea of harvesting energy directly from the environment has attracted immense interest in the recent years [7] [5].The ambient sources of energy in the environment includes solar energy, mechanical vibrations, acoustic nose, temperature variations etc. Out of these sources, mechanical vibrations is one of the most viable and ubiquitous source of energy [7].There are mainly three methods of converting the mechanical energy from vibrations to electrical energy Electromagnetic Conversion, Electrostatic Conversion, and Piezoelectric Conversion [7] [5] [8]. Out of the various proposed and tested vibration energy harvesting devices(EHD), piezoelectric converters has

received most attention due to various reasons like high energy density, no separate voltage source is required, no mechanical stops required etc. [7] [11]. Several piezoelectric EHDs were presented in literature. In [7], the author proposed an initial prototype for piezoelectric converter which produced a maximum output of about 200 W.Another piezoelectric EHD with cantilever beam using AlN piezoelectric material has been discussed in [2].This paper discusses a standard manufacturing process ow for fabrication of the device. An ultra wide bandwidth piezoelectric EHD is proposed in [1] which uses a doubly anchored beam for resonant frequency tuning. A passive resonant frequency adaptation capability for a piezoelectric converter is discussed in [3]. In [9], a doubly clamped structure has been proposed which produces a power of 20 W at 1.2 g acceleration. This structure also has a frequency tuning property of about 3 Hz. In this paper the design and analysis of a piezoelectric energy harvester is presented.

2. Principle of Vibration Energy Harvesting

2.1. Vibrations
Low level mechanical vibrations are present almost everywhere like buildings, machines,manufacturing and assembly plant environments, vehicles, refrigerators, dryers etc. An extensive study of various commonly occurring low level vibrations was carried out in [7]. Many interesting observations were made in the study. Most of the vibration energy from the sources is concentrated at a few discrete frequencies. Also the fundamental vibration frequency for almost all sources is between 70 and 125 Hz.All the vibration sources can be characterized by the acceleration magnitude and frequency of the fundamental vibration mode.

2.2. Vibration to Electricity Conversion Model

A generic vibration to electricity conversion model has been proposed by Williams and Yates in [10]. This model is shown in g.1 The model is described by the equation 1

|P | =

me A2 2 4T (4)

If the acceleration magnitude of the vibration remains constant, the output power is inversely proportional to the frequency. So the converter should be designed to resonate at the lowest fundamental frequency. Also the power output increases with proof mass. The mechanical damping should be as low as possible and the power is optimized for e equal to m .

2.3. Transduction Mechanisms

Figure 1: Generic Vibration Converter There are mainly three types of tranduction mechanism for vibration energy harvesters- Electromagnetic , Electrostatic and Piezoelectric transduction Mechanisms [7] [11]. In electromagnetic generators, the electrical damper of the microgenerator is implemented by using the principle of Faradays law electromagnetic induction.A coil is allowed to move in a magnetic eld.The change of magnetic ux linkage in the coil produces an voltage across the coil, driving a current in the circuit The force produced by the moving charges in the magnetic eld opposes the relative motion between the coil and the magnet.The work done against this opposing force is converted into electrical energy. There are some practical difculties in implementing electromagnetic microgenerator in the MEMS scale. The number of coils that can be manufactured is limited and this results in low output voltages which cannot be rectied using diode rectiers. Also the integration of permanent magnets and ferromagnetc materials in MEMS scale is difcult. In electrostatic microgenerators, mechanical force will do work against the attraction of oppositely charged plate of a capacitor.The voltage across a capacitor is given by

mz + (be + bm )z + kz = my

(1)

where z is the spring deection, y is the input displacement, m is the mass, be is electrically induced damping coefcient, bm mechanical damping coefcient,and k is the spring constant. The power converted to electrical system is given by

3 2 ) Y n |P | = ) + (1 ( )2 )2 (2T n n me n 2 ( (2) where e is the electrical damping ratio, m is the mechanical damping ratio, T is combined damping ratio (e + m ), n natural frequency of the mass spring system , frequency of the driving vibrations,and Y input displacement. The power output when the resonant frequency of the mass spring system matches with the input vibration frequency is given by

V= |P | = me 3 Y 2 2 4T (3) or

Q C (5)

where Q is the charge, C is the capacitance which is given by

C=

0 lw

d (6)

If the charge is held constant, the voltage can be increased by reducing the capacitance.If the voltage is held constant, the charge can be increased by increasing the capacitance.The capacitance is varied by varying either l or d. In either case, the energy stored on the capacitor, which is given by the following equation increases. Figure 2: Circuit representation of piezoelectric element is zero.) The expression for the open circuit voltage is given by equation 10 . VOC = (7) An excellent description of the various modes of operation of electrostatic converters is given in [4]. The primary disadvantage of electrostatic converters is that they require a separate voltage source to initiate the conversion process because the capacitor must be charged up to an initial voltage for the conversion process to start.They also require mechanical stops which causes reliability problems and also increases the mechanical damping. dt (10)

E=

1 Q2 1 QV = CV 2 = 2 2 2C

If the piezoelectric material undergoes a periodic or sinusoidal stress due to external vibrations, an AC open circuit voltage dened by equation 10 can be measured across the material.

3.0.1

Modes of Operation

There are two modes in which a piezoelectric material is generally used. They are 33 mode 31 mode

3. Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

In piezoelectric converters, the property of piezo electricity is used as the conversion mechanism.ie when a mechanical stress is produced in a piezoelectric material, an electric eld is induced across the material and vice versa. This effect is due to the spontaneous separation of charge within certain crystal structures under the right conditions producing an electric dipole.The constitutive equations for a piezoelectric material are given in equations 8 and 9 . = + dE Y (8) (9)

D = E + d

where is mechanical strain, is mechanical stress, Y is the modulus of elasticity (Youngs Modulus), d is the piezoelectric strain coefcient, E is the electric eld, D is the electrical displacement (charge density),and is the dielectric constant of the piezoelectric material. A circuit representation of a piezoelectric element is given in [7]. The source voltage is simply dened as the open circuit voltage resulting from equation 9. (The open circuit condition means that the electrical displacement (D)

Figure 3: (33 mode) Typically, piezoelectric material is used in the 33 mode, meaning that both the voltage and stress act in the 3 direction. However, the material can also be operated in the 31 mode, meaning that the voltage acts in the 3 direction (i.e.

voltage source is needed to initiate the conversion process. Additionally, there is generally no need for mechanical limit stops. Therefore, these devices can be designed to exhibit very little mechanical damping.

4. Proposed Energy Harvesting Structure

In this paper, a piezoelectric microgenerator structure is presented.

Figure 4: (31 mode)

the material is poled in the 3 direction), and the mechanical stress / strain acts in the 1 direction. Operation in 31 mode leads to the use of thin bending elements in which a large strain in the 1 direction is developed due to bending. The most common type of 31 elements are bimorphs, in which two separate sheets are bonded together, sometimes with a center shim in between them. As the element bends, the top layer of the element is in tension and bottom layer is in compression or vice versa.Therefore, if each layer is poled in the same direction and electrodes are wired properly, the current produced by each layer will add. This is termed as Parallel polling.Conversely, if the layers are poled in opposite directions, the voltages add. This is termed series poling. Although the electrical/mechanical coupling for 31 mode is lower than for 33 mode, there is a key advantage to operating in 31 mode. The system is much more compliant, therefore larger strains can be produced with smaller input forces. Also, the resonant frequency is much lower. An immense mass would be required in order to design a piezoelectric converter operating in 33 mode with a resonant frequency somewhere around 120 Hz. Therefore, the use of bending elements operating in 31 mode is essential. A bending element could be mounted in many ways to produce a generator. A cantilever beam conguration with a mass placed on the free end has been chosen for two reasons. First, the cantilever mounting results in the lowest stiffness for a given size, and even with the use of bending elements it is difcult to design for operation at about 120 Hz in less than 1 cm3. Second, for a given force input, the cantilever conguration results in the highest average strain for a given force input. Piezoelectric converters have certain advantages.Voltages in the range of two to several volts and currents on the order of tens to hundreds of microAmps are easily obtainable.A second advantage is that no separate

Figure 5: Proposed Structure Most of the commonly occurring machine vibrations is around 120 Hz [7].So we designed our structure to have a resonant frequency of 120 Hz , vibrating in the vertical direction in rst mode. The structure has dimensions 1200m length, 500m width and 400m height. The structure has an anchor part made of silicon on which the piezolayer and the electrical contacts are deposited. The proof mass is at the end of the cantilever beam which is also made of silicon.The piezoelectric material used is Aluminium Nitride(AlN), which has piezoelectric coefcients of e33 =1.55 cm2 and e31 =-0.58 cm2 . The upper and lower electrode contacts are made of Aluminium.

5. Manufacturing Process Flow

The rst step of the process ow is the deposition of silicon with a thickness of 490 m. This layer is then etched with a mask to dene the anchor and the proof mass. Then a sacricial layer is added above which the beam part is created. After this the lower electrode is deposited and etched. This is followed by Aluminium Nitride layer and then the Aluminium upper electrode is deposited. The oor plan of the device is as shown in g 6.

7. Conclusion
Most of the commonly occurring vibration sources produce vibrations at very low frequencies, often less than 200 Hz. So microgenerators need to be designed to vibrate at such low frequencies.It is a challenge for the designers to design a micro device to vibrate at such low frequencies. In this paper , a piezoelectric microgenerator is proposed for harvesting energy from ambient vibrations. Our device vibrates at a very low resonant freuency of 120 Hz. Many commonly used electrical machines vibrate at that frequency. So our structure nds application in such environments. The structure is designed in the MEMS designing software Coventor MEMS+ and the analysis of the structure is done with Matlab Simulink.At its resonant frequency , the beam displaces upto 1.5 m at an input acceleration amplitude of 1g, which produces sufcient strain in the piezoelectric material.

Figure 6: Floor plan of the device

6. Simulation and Results

The structure is modeled in Coventor MEMS+ 2.0. The manufacturing process le is created in Process Editor and structure is designed in Innovator. then the model is exported to Matlab Simulink for analysis. A modal analysis is done in Simulink and the resonant frequency of the device is found to be 120 Hz. Giving an acceleration of 1g, in the vertical direction at its resonant frequency ,the displacement of the beam is found out to be about 1.5 m. The result is shown in the gure 7.

References
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Figure 7: Displacement of the structure at the resonant frequency

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