Current Applied Physics 15 (2015) 669e674

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Current Applied Physics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cap

Designing and manufacturing a piezoelectric tile for harvesting energy

from footsteps
Sung Joo Hwang a, Hyun Jun Jung a, Jeong Hun Kim a, Jung Hwan Ahn a, Daniel Song a,
Yewon Song b, Hee Lak Lee b, Sung Pil Moon c, Hyeonsu Park d, Tae Hyun Sung a, *
a

Department of Electrical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 136-791, Republic of Korea

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 136-791, Republic of Korea
Department of Physics, Hanyang University, Seoul 136-791, Republic of Korea
d
Department of Mathematics, Hanyang University, Seoul 136-791, Republic of Korea
b
c

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 11 November 2014
Received in revised form
22 January 2015
Accepted 5 February 2015
Available online 14 March 2015

The objective of this research is to design a piezoelectric tile for harvesting energy from footsteps and to
optimize the system for harvesting maximum energy. Because piezoelectric modules easily break when
directly subjected to energy generated by human movements, we designed a tile that employs indirect
energy transmission using springs and a tip mass. We aimed at matching the mechanical resonance
frequency of the tile with that of the piezoelectric modules. The resonance frequency of a piezoelectric
module with a 10-g tip mass was almost similar to the vibration frequency of the tile at 22.5 Hz when we
dropped an 80-g steel ball from a 1-m height. We performed impedance matching and realized a
matching value of 15 kU. Under these optimal mechanical and electrical conditions, we harvested 770mW RMS and 55-mW peak output power.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Piezoelectric tile
Mechanical resonance
Frequency matching
Impedance matching

1. Introduction
Over the past ten years, research studies on piezoelectric energy
harvesting have been extensively conducted [1e18]. Among them,
studies on piezoelectric energy harvesting from human force have
also been actively conducted. These studies include the energy
harvested from the bending of elbow or nger joints [19], implants
in the knee joints [20], electricity generated using polyvinylidene
diuoride attached to bag straps [21], piezoelectric modules
inserted under the soles of shoes [22e25], or motion of the human
limbs [26,27].
The power generated from wearable devices such as shoes or
backpacks can be utilized as micro-electricity sources for auxiliary
power. Although the above mentioned cases cannot be considered
as macro-sources because of their limited installation area, independent units such as piezoelectric tiles can be planted over a
wider area; thus, they can be used as macro-power sources.
Two ways of generating power from piezoelectric modules are
available: hitting [28e31] and vibrating [32e42]. Hitting involves

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sungth@hanyang.ac.kr (T.H. Sung).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cap.2015.02.009
1567-1739/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

the transfer of energy directly to the piezoelectric modules, and

thus, it generates more power than the vibrating method of
generating power. However, because the hitting method of generating power can easily break the modules, the vibrating method has
been studied more widely. Ceramic piezoelectric modules can be
easily broken when directly subjected to energy generated from
human movements. Therefore, we developed a piezoelectric tile
that employs an indirect method of energy transmission using a
spring and a tip mass.
This research is aimed at matching the resonance frequency of a
cantilevered piezoelectric module with the frequency of a piezoelectric tile. In addition, we optimize the circuits through impedance matching after mechanical optimization by frequency
matching.
2. Method
Fig. 1 shows the piezoelectric tile used in our experiment.
Fig. 1(a) shows that it is modeled on a real tile, and its area is
150
150 mm2. Fig. 1(b) shows that the piezoelectric tile consists of
an upper plate that has to be directly stepped on, a middle plate
where the piezoelectric modules are set up, a bottom plate, and
four supporting springs. The middle plate is piezo installed layer

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S.J. Hwang et al. / Current Applied Physics 15 (2015) 669e674

Table 1
Material properties of the piezoelectric module.
Piezoelectric material

Value

Density (g/cm3)
Dielectric constants (33T/0)
Piezoelectric charge constants (
1012 m/V): d33, d31
Piezoelectric voltage constants (
103 V m/N): g33,g31
Elastic constants (
1012 m2/N): SE11, SD11
Stainless steel (SUS-304)
Density (g/cm3)
Young's modulus (GPa)

7.60
21
450, 200
22.1, 11.1
13.8, 11.8
Value
8
193

ubeam

s
Kbeam

meff

(1)

Effective stiffness (Kbeam), which can be written as

Kbeam

0
1
n1
n2
X
b @X

ni Ei h3i
nj Ej h3j A
4L3 i1
j1

(2)

where b is the width of the beam, L is the length of the beam; n1 and
n2 are the numbers of piezoelectric and electrode layers; Ei and hi
are the Young's modulus and height of each piezoelectric layer; and
Ej and hj are the Young's modulus and height of electrode layer,
respectively. The effective mass of cantilever beam (meff) with the
tip mass can be approximated as

0
meff

mt 0:23bL@

n1
X
i1

Fig. 1. Conceptual design of the piezoelectric and real tiles. (a) Real piezoelectric tile
with a real tile. (b) Illustration of the piezoelectric tile. (c) Piezo-installed layer.

which is attached upper plate. The length of the four springs is

40 mm, and the thickness of the upper and bottom plates is 10 mm
each. Fig. 1(c) shows a detailed image of the cross section of the
middle part where the modules are placed. The piezoelectric material with the dimension of 47
32
0.2 mm3 is placed on a
substrate of stainless steel plate having the dimension of
62
37
0.2 mm3. The thick lm piezoelectric material is PZTPZNM manufactured by TIOCEAN (Korea). Table 1 lists the properties of the piezoelectric material.
2.1. Frequency matching between the piezoelectric tile and the
piezoelectric module
Theoretically, resonance frequency of the cantilever beam relies
on effective stiffness of the beam and effective mass of both beam
and a tip mass [43].

ni ri hi

n2
X

1
nj rj hj A

(3)

j1

where mt is tip mass; and ri and rj are the densities of the piezoelectric and electrode plate, respectively [44].
In order to nd out the natural frequency of the tile, we dropped
an 80-g steel ball from a height of 1 m for equal input energy. The
displacement sensor ZS-HLDS10 shown in Fig. 2(a) is manufactured
by Omron (Korea), and the DPO-4054B oscilloscope is manufactured by Tektronix (USA). The displacement sensor measured the
displacement of the vibrating surface when the steel ball hit the
surface under free fall.
Fig. 2(b) shows the experimental tools used for measuring the
resonance frequency of the piezoelectric module with a tip mass.
The function generator is model 33250A manufactured by Agilent
(USA), the vibration exciter is model 4809 manufactured by Brel &
Kjr (Denmark), and the power amplier is model 2718 manufactured by Brel & Kjr (Denmark). We used the displacement
sensor to measure the vibration displacement on the surface when
the 80-g steel ball fell on it.
Using the exciter shown in Fig. 2(b), we determined the different
resonance frequencies by varying the tip mass at 0, 10, 30, and 50 g.
Subsequently, we checked whether the output voltage was high
near the resonance point by measuring the voltage using different
tip masses.
From the experiment described, we adopted the tip mass with
the most similar resonance frequency to the vibration frequency of
the tile.

2.2. Impedance matching using resistive component and

application to real conditions
Extracted power from piezoelectric module, which can be
written as

S.J. Hwang et al. / Current Applied Physics 15 (2015) 669e674


Prms

Vrms
RL; opt

671

2
(7)

We measured the output RMS voltage by oscilloscope during

four seconds and calculated RMS power of one piezoelectric
module using equation (7). In this case, we varied the resistance
from 10 to 100 kU at a 10-kU step. When we used four piezoelectric
modules connected in parallel, we varied the resistance from 3 to
30 kU at a 3-kU step. Then, we compared the RMS and peak powers
of the four piezoelectric modules.
Also, optimum resistance (RL,opt) can be obtained by

RL;opt

1
Cp
2pf

(8)

where Cp is the internal capacitance of piezoelectric material, u is

the angular frequency and f is vibration frequency of cantilever
beam [46]. And the capacitance is

Cp

d31
Lp
bp
g31
tp

(9)

where d31 is the piezoelectric charge constant, g31 is the piezoelectric voltage constant, and Lp, bp and tp is the length, width and
thickness of the piezoelectric material, respectively [47].
After this process, we applied the piezoelectric tile to a real
situation. When a 68-kg man stepped on the tile once, we
measured the RMS and peak values of the output power.
3. Result and discussion
Fig. 2. Experimental setup (a) for measuring the vibration frequency of the piezoelectric tile, (b) for measuring the resonance frequency of a piezoelectric module with
a tip mass, composed of the function generator, vibration exciter, power amplier, and
piezoelectric module (made by TIOCEAN CO.).


P

VS
ZS ZL

2
ZL

(4)

where Vs is generated voltage from piezoelectric module, Zs is internal impedance of piezoelectric module, and ZL is load impedance. Maximum power was transferred from piezoelectric module
to load when load impedance matched the internal impedance of
piezoelectric module [45].
We must perform impedance matching on all the inductance
and resistance components to extract the maximum power; however, matching of the inductance components requires inductors of
a very large size [45]. Therefore, we only used resistance components for performing impedance matching in this research.


Pmax

VS
ZS ZL; opt

2
RL; opt

Vs2
Rs Rs 2 Xs  Xs 2

(5)

!2
Rs

Vs2
4Rs

(6)

If we consider only resistive load, the matching resistance of the

four parallel piezoelectric modules will have only a quarter value of
a single module.

3.1. Frequency matching between the piezoelectric tile and the

piezoelectric module using FFT analysis and vibration exciter
The natural frequency for the total system was 23.5 Hz without
any tip mass, and became smaller as the tip mass became heavier.
With the 50-g tip mass which was the heaviest, we measured
19.2 Hz for the natural frequency. Since the frequency ranged
around 20 Hz, it was necessary to tune the piezoelectric modules to
this value.
To determine the appropriate tip mass that could resonate with
the piezoelectric tile, we calculated and measured the resonance
frequency with respect to the variation in the tip mass. We used
equation (2) for calculating effective stiffness (Kbeam) of cantilever
beam and the value was 146.2 N/m. The effective mass of cantilever
beam (meff) with 0, 10, 30 and 50 g tip mass was calculated with
equation (3). Each value was 1.4, 11.4, 31.4, and 51.4 g. With these
data, the tip masses of 0, 10, 30, and 50 g resulted in theoretical
resonance frequencies of 51.8, 18, 10.9, and 8.5 Hz, while giving very
close measured values of 51.5, 20, 11, and 8.5 Hz, respectively, as
shown in Fig. 3. Therefore, 10-g tip mass gave the most desirable
result.
We also measured the natural frequency of the total system with
this tip mass. Fig. 4 shows that the main frequency is 22.5 Hz, as
obtained from the fast Fourier transformation (FFT) analysis of the
vibration displacement of the piezoelectric tile; the vibration
displacement was caused by the impact of the 80-g steel ball under
free fall.
We conducted another experiment to determine the output
voltage (open circuit) caused by the tip mass, by dropping steel
balls with weights of 20, 40, 60, and 80 g. Fig. 5 shows that a higher
input energy resulted in a higher output voltage for all cases. The
generation capacity, however, was not proportional to the weight of
the tip mass. The 10-g tip mass had a higher output than the 30- or

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S.J. Hwang et al. / Current Applied Physics 15 (2015) 669e674

Fig. 3. Theoretical and measured value of resonance frequency with respect to the
various tip masses.

Fig. 6. Output voltage and power graph according to the load.

Contrary to the common idea that a heavier tip mass results in a

higher output power, the most desirable result was obtained when
a 10-g tip mass was used that realized a resonance frequency of the
piezoelectric module that was similar to the vibration frequency of
the piezoelectric tile. This mechanical resonance frequency
matching is a good initial step in the development of a macro-scale
piezoelectric tile.
3.2. Impedance matching for circuit optimization and application to
real condition

Fig. 4. FFT analysis of the displacement vibration of the piezoelectric tile.

50-g tip masses because the piezoelectric module with a 10-g tip
mass had the most similar resonance frequency to the vibration
frequency of the piezoelectric tile.

Fig. 5. Output voltage with respect to the various tip masses.

We could calculate the matched resistance at 20 Hz for one

piezoelectric panel with the equation (8), while the equation (9)
gave 135 nF for the capacitance. Therefore, the resistance became
59 kU. For four piezoelectric panels, the Cp becomes four times
larger, which caused the matched impedance to be four times
smaller than the one for single panel. Fig. 6 shows the resistive
impedance matched at 15 kU, yielding an output power of 770 mW
(RMS value), and they are well-measured values compared with the
theoretical ones.
Therefore, by optimizing the system using the tip mass on the
piezoelectric module and the circuit through impedance matching,
we could obtain the optimal conditions for the piezoelectric tile.
Under these conditions, the output power-generation process

Fig. 7. Output RMS power and peak power of the four piezoelectric modules with
respect to the load.

S.J. Hwang et al. / Current Applied Physics 15 (2015) 669e674

673

on the piezoelectric tile when it is impacted by steel balls under free

fall. We performed mechanical optimization by matching the vibration frequency of the tile to the resonance frequency of the
piezoelectric module. A tip mass of 10 g approached the resonance
frequency of 20 Hz, which was very close to the vibration frequency
of 22.5 Hz. Under that condition, we also performed circuit optimization through impedance matching. One piezoelectric module
was matched at 30 kU, yielding an output power of 350-mW RMS.
Four piezoelectric modules were matched at 15 kU, yielding output
powers of 770-mW RMS and 55-mW peak. This RMS value was
203% higher than Moros shoe-mounted harvester [22]. This indirect type harvester has many advantages to applying real environment. This advantage will be an important foundation to macro
scale harvester.
References
Fig. 8. Output voltage curve after AC-DC converting by rectier DF04 when a 68-kg
man stepped on the tile once.

when a steel ball of 80 g hit the vibrating surface resulted in 770mW RMS and 55-mW peak values, as shown in Fig. 7.
We also applied the piezoelectric tile to a real environment.
Fig. 8 shows the output voltage curve after AC-DC converting by
rectier DF04 when a 68-kg man stepped on the tile once. It shows
pushing and recovery cycle. An output power with an RMS value of
0.12 mW and peak value of 53.1 mW was generated. We could
energize an LED lamp WLST6030CWY16 which is consist of sixty
chip LED, manufactured by Wellightec (Korea) with this amount of
power as shown in Fig. 9. The piezoelectric tile could generate
electricity proportional to the installation area.
4. Conclusion
We examined the effect of mechanical and electrical matching

Fig. 9. Sixty chip LED lamp turned on when a 68-kg man stepped on the tile once.

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