Analysis and simulation of multi-mode piezoelectric energy harvesters

Theoretical analysis is performed on a multi-mode energy harvester design with focus on the first two vibration modes. Based on the analysis, a modification is proposed for designing a novel adaptive multimode energy harvester. The device comprises a simply supported beam with distributed mass and piezoelectric elements, and an adaptive damper that provides a 180 degree phase shift for the motions of two supports only at the second vibration mode. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations show that the new design can efficiently scavenge energy at the first two vibration modes. The energy harvesting capability of the multimode energy harvester is also compared with that of a cantilever-based energy harvester for single-mode vibration. The results show that the energy harvesting capacity is affected by the damping ratios of different designs. For fixed damping ratio and design dimensions, the multi-mode design has higher energy harvesting capacity than the cantilever-based design.