This paper addresses a particular type of power harvesting in which energy in the periodic movement of structures is
parasitically converted to stored electric charge. In such applications, tuning of the vibration power harvesters' resonance
frequency is often required to match the host structures' forcing frequency. This paper presents a method of adjusting the
boundary conditions of nonlinear stiffness elements as a means of tuning the resonance frequency of piezoelectric
vibration power harvesters (altering the deformation mode from bending to in-plane stretching). Using this tuning
method, the resonance frequency was experimentally varied between 56 and 62 Hz. For a vibration level of 2 mm/s, the
harvester has a similar Q to a linear system but its Q is reduced by one third at a vibration level of 10 mm/s. This
behavior is important for applications where high sensitivity is required for low vibration levels but mechanical
robustness is required for high vibration levels.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.