Use of piezoelectric energy harvesting devices for charging batteries

Henry A. Sodano, Gyuhae Park, Donald J. Leo, Daniel J. Inman

Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0261, USA

ABSTRACT

Piezoelectric materials can be used as mechanisms to transfer ambient vibrations into electrical energy that
can be stored and used to power other devices. With the recent surge of micro scale devices, Piezoelectric power
generation can provide a conventional alternative to traditional power sources used to operate certain types of
sensors/actuators, telemetry, and MEMS devices. In this paper, two types of piezoelectric materials were
experimentally investigated for use as power harvesting devices. The two types being the commonly used
monolithic piezoelectric (PZT) and Macro Fiber Composites (MFC), which were recently developed at the NASA
Langley Center. Our experimental results estimate the efficiency of these devices and identify the feasibility of their
use in real world applications. In general the power produced by the vibration of a piezoelectric device is on the
order of a few milliwatts which is far too little to power for most applications. Therefore, each the transducer is
used to charge nickel metal hydride batteries of varying sizes to compare their performance and ability of to store
electrical power. The results presented in this paper show the potential of piezoelectric materials for use in power
harvesting applications.

Keywords: Power harvesting, Piezoelectric, Macro-Fiber Composites

1. INTRODUCTION

Piezoelectric materials form transducers that are able to interchange electrical energy and mechanical motion or
force. These materials, therefore, can be used as mechanisms to transfer ambient motion (usually vibration) into
electrical energy that may be stored and used to power other devices. By implementing power harvesting devices
we can develop portable systems that do not depend on traditional methods for providing power, such as the battery,
which has a limited operating life.

Recent studies, experiments and patents, indicate the feasibility of using PZT devices as power sources. Umeda,
et al1 uses a free-falling ball to impact a plate with a piezoceramic wafer attached to its underside, and developed an
electrical equivalent model of the PZT transforming mechanical impact energy to electrical power. They also
investigated the energy storage characteristics of the PZT with a bridge rectifier and a capacitor. Starner2 examines
the energy available from leg motion of a human being and surveys other human motion sources of mechanical
energy including blood pressure. The author claims 8.4 watts of useable power can be achieved from a PZT
mounted in a shoe. Kymissis et al3 examines using a piezofilm in addition to the ceramic used in reference 2, to
provide power to light a bulb in a shoe, entirely from walking motion. Kimura’s US Patent4 centers on the vibration
of a small plate, harnessed to provide a rectified voltage signal. The effort seems to be motivated by providing
enough energy to run a small transmitter fixed to migratory birds for the purpose of transmitting their identification
code and location. This result is also compared to using existing battery technology. Goldfarb et al5 presented a
linearized model of a PZT stack and analyzed the efficiency of it as a power generation device. It was shown that
the maximum efficiency occurs in a low frequency region much lower than the structural resonance of the stack.
The efficiency is also related to the amplitude of the input force due to hysteresis of the PZT. In addition to the
force applied in the poling direction (d33 mode), Clark and Ramsay6 have investigated and compared it with the
transverse force (d31 mode) for a PZT generator. There work showed that the d31 mode has a mechanical advantage

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 in converting applied pressure to working stress for power generation. They concluded that a 1-cm2 piezoceramic
wafer can power MEMS device in the microwatt range. Elvin et al7 theoretically and experimentally investigates
the use of the self-powered strain energy sensors using PVDF. Their half-rectified circuit was then combined with
wireless communication device for human bone strain monitoring8. Kasyap et al9 formulated a lumped element
model to represent the dynamic behavior of PZT in multiple energy domains using an equivalent circuit. Their
model has been experimentally verified using a 1-d beam structure with the peak power efficiencies of
approximately 20%. Gonzalez et al10 analyzed the prospect of piezoelectric based energy conversion, and suggested
several issues to raise the electrical output power of the existing prototypes to the level that can be theoretically
obtained. Ottman et al11 investigated the effects of utilizing a DC-DC converter with an adaptive control algorithm
to maximize power output of the piezoelectric element. There efforts found that in using their adaptive circuit
energy was harvested at over for times the rate of direct charging without a converter.

In this paper a comparison of two types of piezoelectric materials were experimentally investigated for use as
energy transducers. The two types tested were the commonly used monolithic piezoelectric (PZT) and the Macro
Fiber Composite (MFC). The MFC is a revolutionary new actuator which was recently developed at the NASA
Langley Research Center. Due to the MFC’s construction using piezofibers, the overall strength of the material is
greatly increased when compared to that of the base material, while affording the MFC greatly increased flexibility.
Furthermore, the interdigitated electrodes offer much higher force or free displacement than monolithic
piezoceramic devices. The efficiency of each material to change applied mechanical power into usable electric
energy was determined for a random disturbance signal and at the resonance of the test specimen. The feasibility of
the devices for charging a rechargeable battery has been studied. This research is motivated by the fact that power
generated by piezoelectric materials is far smaller than required for the normal operation of most electronics in real
field applications. Further, the time required by PZT to charge power storage devices can take much more time than
certain applications have available. Therefore each of the materials was used to charge a variety of different
capacity nickel metal hydride batteries and the charge time for each is compared. After testing both piezoelectric
materials significant differences in there ability to produces electrical energy were found, possible reasons
contributing to these differences will be discussed.

2. METHODOLOGY

2.1 PZT and MFC Configuration

An aluminum shim with a PSI-5H4E piezoceramic (PZT) from Piezo Systems Inc. bonded to its surface was
used to absorb the vibration energy and convert it to usable electricity. The aluminum plate was constructed as
shown in Figure 1. The thickness of the aluminum plate and the PZT were 0.0025 and 0.0105 inches respectively.
The MFC was bonded using double sided tape to a similar aluminum shim. It must be noted that due to the bonding
of the MFC using double sided tape the damping of the plate was increased and the full mechanical energy was not
transmitted. The dimensions of the MFC and the plate setup are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1: Size and layout of the PZT plate.

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 Figure 2: Size and layout of the MFC plate.

2.2 Experimental Setup

Vibration of the PZT and MFC plates was induced by an electromagnetic shaker. The two plates were
configured with cantilever boundary conditions with the shaker providing base motion as shown in Figure 3. The
signal provided to the shaker was a fairly low voltage as to closely follow the amplitude of the vibration of a car
engine. The vibration of an automobile compressor and the plate measured with a PCB accelerometer (model
U352C22) is shown in Figure 4. As seen in Figure 4, the magnitude of vibration at the base of the plate when
excited at the resonant frequency is much less than the vibration of the compressor while the random signal is
comparable. Two different types of signals were given to the shaker, the first was at the resonance of the plate and
the second was a random signal from 0-500 Hz. To determine the efficiency of the setup a Polytec Laser
Vibrometer was used to determine the displacement of the plate and a PCB force transducer (model 208) was used
to measure the applied force. A simple circuit consisting of a capacitor and full bridge rectifier was used to apply
charge to the battery as shown in Figure 5. The large capacitance C before the battery was used to smooth the signal
into a DC like voltage for the battery. Although more complicated circuits could be used this circuit is simple to
construct and uses passive components therefore minimizing losses.

Figure 3: Experimental setup with the MFC plate in a cantilever configuration.

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 Vibration of Plate Measured with Accelerometer Vibration of Plate at Resonance Measured with an Accelerometer
0.04 0.03

0.03
0.02
0.02

0.01 0.01
Acceleration (volts)

Acceleration (volts)
0
0
-0.01
-0.01
-0.02

-0.03 -0.02

-0.04
-0.03
-0.05

-0.06 -0.04
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Vibration of Plate Measured with Accelerometer Vibraiton of Plate Measured with an Accelerometer
0.04 0.1

0.03 0.08

0.02 0.06

0.01 0.04
Acceleration (volts)

Acceleration (volts)

0 0.02

-0.01 0

-0.02 -0.02

-0.03 -0.04

-0.04 -0.06

-0.05 -0.08

-0.06 -0.1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Figure 4: Vibration of an automobile compressor compared to magnitude of signal applied to the plate.

Figure 5: Schematic of battery charging circuit.

3.0 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

3.1 Efficiency
The first goal of this work was to determine the efficiency of the setup used in our experiments. To do this we used
a laser vibrometer to measure the displacement of the plate and a force transducer to measure the applied force.
With this data and the voltage output from the piezoelectric, equation 1 was numerically calculated to determine the
average efficiency.

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 m
(Vn − Vn−1 )2 R
Pout
∑
n = 2 ((Fn − Fn −1 ) ⋅ (d n − d n −1 )) (t n − t n −1 )
η= × 100% = × 100% (1)
Pin m

Where ? is the efficiency, V is the voltage drop across resistance R, F is the force applied to the base of the plate, d is
the displacement of the plate, t is the time increment between data points, n is the data point index and m is the
highest measured point. The efficiency of three input signals was calculated with the input signals being resonance,
chirp and random. The resulting efficiencies are shown in Table 1. For each signal three measurements were made
to show consistency. The efficiency of the PZT plate is low at resonance because the resonance frequency used was
the frequency at which the voltage output was the highest, not the frequency with the best force in to voltage out
characteristics. This lower efficiency is shown because that is the resonance frequency used to charge a battery.

Table 1: Efficiency of PZT and MFC with three different inputs.

Signal PZT Efficiency (%) MFC Efficiency (%)

Resonance 1.1675 0.9442
2.0777 1.0727
1.1796 0.8782
Chirp 0-500 Hz 3.927 2.7421
3.9388 2.5476
3.8948 2.6285
Random 0-500 Hz 3.9369 0.7636
3.6825 0.828
4.2174 0.7366

While the MFC had a voltage far larger than the PZT the power produced was much less. This is because the
construction of the MFC using piezofibers and interdigitated electrodes. Because MFC are constructed in this
fashion the segments of piezoelectric material between each electrode can be considered a small power source, this
is shown in Figure 6. The majority of these small power sources are connected to one another in series. When two
power sources are connected in series the voltages add but the current does not. For this reason the MFC produces a
much higher voltage while the current remains far smaller than that of the PZT.

Figure 6: Layout of a MFC patch and the equivalent circuit layout.

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 3.2 Battery Charging Results
Several batteries ranging from 40 mAh to 1000 mAh were charged using the PZT and MFC (The unit milliamp-hour
“mAh” indicates the capacity of a battery. A 40 mAh capacity means that the battery will last for 1 hour if subjected
to a 40mA discharge current). It was found that the MFC was not capable of charging a battery unless the
disturbance signal was very large. The MFC’s inability to charge a battery occurs because when charging a battery
the current must be fairly high (usually one-tenth the battery’s capacity or higher) but as explained previously the
MFC does not produce a high current. Therefore the MFC was unable to charge the batteries and this data will not
be presented.

Two signals were applied to the PZT and used to charge the batteries; the first was a resonance signal at 50 Hz and
the second was a random signal ranging from 0-500 Hz. The resonance signal was applied at 0.8 volts peak and the
random signal was applied at 1.0 volts RMS. As indicated in the previous section the magnitude of the signals
applied to the PZT plate closely follow that of an automobiles compressor. The time required for the battery to
charge past the cell voltage of 1.2 volts was measured in each case. This is not a complete charge but is about 90%
full. The time required to top off the battery is far slower than to reach this point. For this reason and the inability
to detect a full charge due to the absence of a charge controller compatible with the power output from the PZT this
was considered a full charge.

Using the methods outlined, each battery was charged while the voltage on the battery was measured. The resulting
charge time for each battery is shown in Table 2 and plots of the typical battery charging cycle is shown in Figure 7.
Although the larger batteries will reach this level of charge it is doubtful whether the PZT would supply sufficient
current for full charge of these batteries. When comparing the charge times shown in Table 2, the resonance and
random signal have similar times, this is because the voltage applied to the shaker during the resonance signal was
lower than applied during a random signal. A Lower voltage signal was required during resonance to avoid over
straining the PZT. This work provides a platform to build off of when using piezoelectric materials to charge
batteries.

Table 2: Time required charging different sized batteries using a piezoelectric.

Battery Size (mAh) Time for Charge at Resonance Time for Charge with Random Signal
40 1.62 Hours 1.6 Hours
80 1.2 Hours 2 Hours
200 4 Hours 1.2 Hours
300 6 Hours 5.8 Hours
750 7 Hours 8.6 Hours
1000 22 Hours 32 Hours

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 1.2 Volt, 80mAh Battery Charged by PZT with Vibration at Resonance 1.2 Volt, 300mAh Battery Charged by PZT with Random Vibration
1.4 1.4

1.2 1.2

1 1
Voltage (volts)

Voltage (volts)
0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (hours) Time (hours)

1.2 Volt, 750mAh Battery Charged by PZT 1.2 Volt, 80mAh Battery Charged by PZT with Random Vibration
1.4 1.4

1.2 1.2

1 1
Voltage (volts)

Voltage (volts)

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Time (hours) Time (hours)

Figure 7: Typical characteristics of batteries charged with both random and resonant signals applied to a PZT.

4.0 CONCLUSIONS

This paper presents the results of charging various sized batteries using piezoelectrics. The efficiency of two types
of piezoelectric materials was identified. It was found that the MFC produces a high voltage but substantially less
power. A simple method of explaining the cause of the low power output is identified. It was found that due to the
MFC’s low current output this material was not well suited for charging batteries. While the MFC was ineffective,
the PZT ability to charge several different size batteries was identified and the time required charging these batteries
to about 90% capacity is given. Future work will incorporate a charge controller into the circuit to identify time
required for a fully charged battery and allow the circuit to switch between batteries in use and charging in order to
maintain a constant power supply.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was sponsored by The National Science Foundation, award# CMS 0120827. The authors gratefully
acknowledge the support.

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