Quad-Trapezoidal-Leg Orthoplanar Spring with Piezoelectric Plate for Enhancing the Performances of Vibration Energy Harvester

Abstract

To validate the potentials of unequal-length section-varied geometry in developing a orthoplanar spring-based piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH), a modified spring with quad-trapezoidal-leg configuration is designed, analyzed, and fabricated. A basic quad-trapezoidal-leg orthoplanar spring (QTOPS) is theoretically analyzed, and the structural effective stress and eigenfrequency are formulated to determine the main dimension parameters. Then, an improved QTOPS with additional intermediations is constructed and simulated. Porotypes with different leg geometries and mass configurations are fabricated and tested. The results of QTOPS and a conventional rectangular-shaped spring are compared. It is verified that the proposed approach provides the structure with an enlarged effective stress and lower resonant frequency, which makes it more suitable to construct a high-performance PVEH than the orthoplanar spring with equal-length or rectangular legs.

Keywords

• piezoelectric harvester
• orthoplanar spring
• trapezoidal leg
• vibration energy