Modeling of partially covered piezoelectric energy harvester connected to SEH interface circuit

In this paper, a modelling methodology of a partially covered piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) connected to an standard energy harvesting (SEH) interface circuit is developed. The PEH is based on a cantilevered beam structure. First, the free end of the PEH cantilever is assumed to be mounted with a tip mass that is much heavier than the weight of the cantilevered beam itself. The PEH is represented by a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) model and the equivalent lumped parameters are derived. Subsequently, for the case when the tip mass is removed, a correction factor is proposed to ensure the accuracy of the SDOF model. The developed SDOF models of the PEH are verified by finite element analysis. Finally, the equivalent impedance method (EIM) is modified and employed for analysing the derived SDOF PEH model with SEH interface circuit. The results are compared with those obtained by using the existing analytical method.