Piezoelectric Wind Energy Harvester for Low-Power Sensors
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Article Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 22(18) 2215–2228 Piezoelectric wind energy harvester Ó The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav for low-power sensors DOI: 10.1177/1045389X11428366 jim.sagepub.com Jayant Sirohi and Rohan Mahadik Abstract There has been increasing interest in wireless sensor networks for a variety of outdoor applications including structural health monitoring and environmental monitoring. Replacement of batteries that power the nodes in these networks is maintenance intensive. A wind energy–harvesting device is proposed as an alternate power source for these wireless sensor nodes. The device is based on the galloping of a bar with triangular cross section attached to a cantilever beam. Piezoelectric sheets bonded to the beam convert the mechanical energy into electrical energy. A prototype device of size approximately 160 3 250 mm was fabricated and tested over a range of operating conditions in a wind tunnel, and the power dissipated across a load resistance was measured. A maximum power output of 53 mW was measured at a wind velocity of 11.6 mph. An analytical model incorporating the coupled electromechanical behavior of the piezoelec- tric sheets and quasi-steady aerodynamics was developed. The model showed good correlation with measurements, and it was concluded that a refined aerodynamic model may need to include apparent mass effects for more accurate predic- tions. The galloping piezoelectric energy-harvesting device has been shown to be a viable option for powering wireless sensor nodes in outdoor applications. Keywords wind energy, energy harvesting, piezoelectric, galloping Introduction Replacement of depleted batteries for large sensor networks can be expensive, time consuming, and envir- The availability of low-power microprocessors and sen- onmentally unfriendly. To overcome these issues, there sors, in conjunction with data loggers and wireless com- has been increasing interest in the use of energy- munication, is enabling a wide range of distributed harvesting methods to power the sensors on-site. This sensing applications. An example of such an application approach eliminates the need for batteries, and the is a network of sensor nodes distributed over a large associated requirement of periodic replacement and dis- civil structure, such as a bridge (Kim et al., 2007; Wang posal. This is especially important in outdoor locations et al., 2006), where each node senses local parameters with inaccessible terrain, or geological parks where such as vibration amplitude or strain. These data can human interaction is minimum and environmental be transmitted wirelessly to a base station or stored impact is key. There have been numerous studies on locally for future interrogation. In this way, the state or harvesting the energy in ambient structural vibrations health of the structure can be monitored. Wireless sen- using piezoelectric materials. Because a majority of sor networks are also used in a number of environmen- wireless sensors are located outdoors, powering them tal monitoring applications (Badrinath et al., 2000; by means of wind could also be a practical alternative. Estrin et al., 2000; Evans and Bergman, 2007; Wang et Aeroelastic instabilities such as flutter and galloping al., 2006). have been explored for harvesting energy from wind. Yick et al. (2008) discussed several commercially available wireless sensors, their vendors, and their applications. The energy requirement of each node is Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, The typically small and can be met by a battery pack. For University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA example, Mainwaring et al. (2002) described a sensor network in an ecological reserve to monitor seabird Corresponding author: Jayant Sirohi, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering nesting, in which each sensor node required 6.9 mAh Mechanics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA per day. Email: [email protected] 2216 Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 22(18) Energy Harvesting Using Piezoelectric Materials harvest energy from flutter, using a piezoelectric The electromechanical coupling exhibited by piezoelec- bimorph with a flap at its tip. Linear and nonlinear tric materials can be harnessed to extract electrical models were developed to predict the performance of energy from mechanical vibrations. As a result, piezo- the device. The device generated an output power on electric materials have found wide application as low- the order of 2 mW. power generators. In a majority of these applications, Galloping is an aeroelastic instability involving low- the piezoelectric material extracts energy from ambient frequency, large-amplitude oscillations of the structure structural vibrations by operating as a base-excited normal to the direction of incident wind. Typically, it oscillator. Sodano et al. (2004) provided an overview of occurs in lightly damped structures with asymmetric several studies related to piezoelectric energy harvest- cross sections, such as ice-covered transmission lines. ing, including devices based on impact; wearable There have been several studies on the effect of various energy-harvesting devices based on motion of the parameters influencing galloping behavior of prismatic human body; and devices designed to power wireless structures with different cross sections (Blevins, 2001), sensors. They also discussed methods to accumulate the such as rectangular (Kazakevich and Vasilenko, 1996), harvested energy, using rechargeable batteries, capaci- D-section (Laneville et al., 1977; Ratkowski, 1961), tri- tors, or flyback converters. While most of the energy- angular (Alonso et al., 2005, 2007; Alonso and harvesting devices are based on cantilever beams, other Meseguer, 2006), and elliptic (Alonso et al., 2010). geometries such as annular piezoelectric unimorphs/ Barrero-Gil et al. (2010) theoretically investigated the bimorphs have also been explored (Kauffman and feasibility of energy harvesting from structures under- Lesieutre, 2009). going galloping. They represented the sectional aerody- duToit et al. (2005) investigated vibration-based namic characteristics using a cubic polynomial piezoelectric energy harvesters to power MEMS-scale and obtained an expression for the harnessable energy. autonomous sensors. They compared the power density Specific methods for energy extraction were not of electrostatic, electromechanical, and piezoelectric discussed. Nondimensional parameters defining the vibration-based energy harvesters and concluded that achievable power density and efficiency of energy con- the piezoelectric devices have the highest power density version were derived. Sirohi and Mahadik (2011) inves- based on volume. tigated wind energy harvesting using a beam with Vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvesters are piezoelectric sheets attached to a galloping tip body limited to relatively low-power outputs, on the order of with D-shaped cross section. The variation of the 1–1000 mW (see duToit et al., 2005) due to the inher- power generated by the piezoelectrics was measured as ently low levels of strain energy in structural vibrations. a function of wind speed. The device produced a maxi- Therefore, optimizing the power conditioning and stor- mum power on the order of 0.5 mW. age electronics is an important part of the overall device This article describes a wind energy–harvesting (see Ottman et al., 2003). device based on a galloping triangular section attached It is interesting to note that vibrational energy har- to cantilever beams with surface-bonded piezoelectric vesting using piezoelectric materials is closely related to sheets. A prototype is tested and the results correlated piezoelectric shunt damping because both concepts with an analytical model. Such a device has the primary extract energy from the structure, resulting in an effec- advantages of simplicity and robustness and could be tive negative damping. However, in the case of energy collocated with the outdoor wireless sensors to power harvesting, the goal is to accumulate the energy while them using renewable wind energy. in the case of shunt damping, the goal is to dissipate as much of the energy as possible. Galloping Piezoelectric Energy Harvester The galloping piezoelectric energy-harvesting device Energy Harvesting from Aeroelastic Instabilities investigated in this article consists of a prismatic rigid Some piezoelectric energy-harvesting devices have been body attached to the tip of two aluminum cantilever developed to harness energy from structural vibrations beams that act like a flexible support. Piezoelectric induced by wind (Tan and Panda, 2007; Wang and Ko, sheets are bonded near the root of the beams, at the 2010). Robbins et al. (2006) investigated the use of flex- location of maximum strain energy. Galloping of the ible, flag-like, piezoelectric sheets to generate power prismatic body in an incident wind results in large- while flapping in an incident wind. The energy that can amplitude oscillatory bending of the beams that is con- be harvested using these approaches is comparable to verted into electrical energy by the piezoelectric sheets. that of a vibration-based device. By exploiting struc- While the tip body can have any cross section that is tures with aeroelastic instabilities, it is possible to prone to galloping, the device described in this article extract significantly higher amounts