Optimal Placement of Piezoelectric Patches on Cantilever Beam for Voltage Generation: Experimental Study Kumar M. Sasi*, Paramasivam K.** *Assistant Professor, Department of Mechatronics Engineering, K. S. Rangasamy College of Technology, Tiruchengode, Nammakal, Tamilnadu, India **Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Kumaraguru College of Technology, Chinnavedampatti, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India Online published on 14 October, 2016. Abstract The paper presents design, development and testing of piezoelectric material based energy harvesting devices as energy generators. In general, a common energy harvesting device uses piezoelectric patch on a cantilever beam with a tip mass. Most of these devices use a rectangular piezoelectric patch covering all position or part of the beam. The voltage generated by the piezoelectric patches are depends upon position on the cantilever beam. In this paper, a prototype harvester has been designed as per aforementioned structure and the output voltage was found experimentally. The piezoelectric patches were placed at different positions on the rectangular cantilever beam and generated ac output voltage was measured. In addition, by changing the tip mass we examine the appearance of different solutions. Identification of optimum place for patches and tip mass on the vibrating structure for the energy harvester is important as each solution may provide a difierent magnitude of ac output voltage. Based on the results, the optimal position of piezoelectric patches for energy harvester is predicted, which gives a way to increase its output voltage. Top Keywords Piezoelectric material, Energy harvesting, Cantilever Beam, Tip mass, Optimal position. Top |