ENS4152 Project Development

Progress Report

Energy Harvesting from Piezo-Electric

Materials
by

Ahmed Ali ARSHAD

Student # 10450518

Due Date: 29 Oct, 2021

Supervisor: Dr Laichang ZHANG

Abstract
The world has been putting shear efforts in making the earth sustainable since the
temperature of the earth has increased because of utilization of fossil fuels increased
carbon emissions due to global warming. Duck attention has been moved towards
renewable energy sources and energy harvesting from small scale materials such as
Piezo-electric materials to large scale systems such as solar parks and wind farms. A
preliminary design of a cantilever piezoelectric device was created and experiment was
performed keeping the prior work done in the field in consideration. Both the
mechanical and electrical design aspects of the device were taken into account. The
mechanical and electrical analysis led to conclude the device designed was able to
harvest energy effectively from the loadings of the moving vehicles, if used at the
roadways.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction................................................................................................................1
1.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................1
1.2 Objectives...........................................................................................................3
1.3 Significance........................................................................................................3
1.4 Report Organisation............................................................................................3
2. Background................................................................................................................4
2.1 Piezoelectric Devices...............................................................................................4
2.2 Overview of Design and Procedure.........................................................................5
2.3 Energy Perspectives of Piezoelectric materials.......................................................6
2.4 Classification of Piezoelectric materials.................................................................8
2.5 Applications and Usage...........................................................................................9
2.6 Losses in Piezoelectric materials...........................................................................14
3. Proposed Approach..................................................................................................18
4. Preliminary Results and Discussions.......................................................................19
4.1 Mechanical design and Analysis...........................................................................19
4.2 Modelling in Proteus.............................................................................................23
4.3 Code on Arduino UNO..........................................................................................23
4.4 Result of the Proteus Simulation...........................................................................24
4.5 Modelling in Simulink...........................................................................................25
4.6 Model Overview....................................................................................................25
4.7 Battery Result........................................................................................................26
4.8 Converter Results..................................................................................................28
5. Conclusion................................................................................................................29
Risk Assessment............................................................................................................1
Gantt chart.....................................................................................................................4

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List of Tables
Figure 1 (a) direct mode of working of piezoelectric materials upon compressive stress
(b) direct mode of working of piezoelectric materials upon tensile stress (Ounaies,
2008)..................................................................................................................................4
Figure 2 inverse mode of working of piezoelectric materials upon application of electric
field (b) inverse mode of working of piezoelectric materials upon application of
reversed electric field (Ounaies, 2008)..............................................................................5
Figure 3 Schematic diagram of the On-road Energy haversian system............................5
Figure 10 Power density in mW/cm3 against Voltage for different technologies.............6
Figure 11 Piezoelectric elements installed in the inner layer of tires (a) Element bonding
with tires (b) Connections of the materials (Makki and Pop-Ilew, 2011).........................7
Figure 12 Illustration of energy harvesting from Piezoelectric setup (Somayyeh Hazeri,
August 2017).....................................................................................................................8
Figure 5 Schematic for cantilever structure of Piezoelectric materials for energy
harvesting (a) unimoprh configuration (b) bimorph configuration (Sezer & Koç, 2021)
.........................................................................................................................................11
Figure 6 Schematic of cymbal structure piezoelectric device for energy harvesting
purpose (Sezer & Koç, 2021)..........................................................................................11
Figure 7 Schematic of 3D PE module used (Song et al., 2016)......................................13
Figure 8 Schematic of electrical equivalent of PE structure along with values of the
parameters (Chen et al., 2017).........................................................................................14
Figure 9 General electrical circuit representation of a piezoelectric energy harvesting
device (G. A. Lesieutre et al., 2004)................................................................................16
Figure 13 Fixed boundary condition for cantilever beam...............................................20
Figure 14 Results for total deformation...........................................................................21
Figure 15 Results for equivalent von-misses...................................................................21
Figure 16 Results for elastic strain..................................................................................22
Figure 17 Results for total deformation...........................................................................22
Figure 18 Simulation results in proteus...........................................................................23
Figure 19 Results with change in input...........................................................................24
Figure 20 Output when input is zero...............................................................................24
Figure 21 Output when input is applied..........................................................................25
Figure 22 Simulink Model for Piezo energy generation.................................................25
Figure 23 Battery charge result.......................................................................................26
Figure 24 Battery current result.......................................................................................26

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Figure 25 Power dissipation across the battery...............................................................27
Figure 26 Voltage across the battery...............................................................................27
Figure 27 Converter results.............................................................................................28

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 1. Introduction

1.1 Introduction
The increased industrial sector has been causing increased demand of energy both by
fossil fuels and renewable energy sector. The utilization of energy by fossil fuels have
caused increased risk for an environment with depreciation of an economy. Not only
that, but the abnormal environmental conditions also resulting in heavy rainfalls,
droughts and storms has affected agricultural and irrigation sector. Different renewable
energy sources being utilized have their own drawbacks. For example, the availability
of solar energy is associated only with availability of sun and in its absence the energy
production by this source is 0. Similarly, the power generation by wind energy systems
is expensive, non-feasible for people living near the wind farms and sound as well as
vibrations in heavy storms may lead to breakage of wind turbine blades. Also, in
absence of the power developed by the wind turbines is also zero. This motivation has
led to utilization of piezo electric materials for generation of clean energy. The principle
of piezo electric energy generation is based on energy harvesting by using piezoelectric
materials that vibrates and produces energy. In other words, the piezoelectric energy is
being harvested by utilizing vibrations that contains mechanical strain as well as
muscular strain on different infrastructures which if not utilized gets wasted. Those
materials can be thought of as transducers that carry out conversion from mechanical
energy having vibrations into that of electrical energy. The advantage is its alternating
nature that can get stored or utilized. The question related to acquirement of energy
arises for which there are different a remote hosts and transportation system containing
runways, roads, airlines, and railways at which the piezo electric systems can be
installed having crystalline structure for the absorption of mechanical energy that has
been caused by the vibrations of those areas. This energy can be harvested here at small
scale as well as at large scale supplying energy to wireless sensors, remote sensors,
micro electronic devices and portable devices, nanotechnology, watches, GPS tracking
system and other medical instruments and for large scale it can be obtained by
installation of piezoelectric systems at roads that are busy, railway tracks and on the
floors of the buildings

When the consideration is made about how the energy harvesting is obtained buy
piezoelectric materials, it is found that the electricity operating from those materials is
basically comprised of charge which makes accumulation of different solid materials

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containing either ceramic crystals or different types of proteins in DNA as well as bone
when provided the response to certain level of mechanical stress. this technology is
related to acquirement of electricity from that of pressure. Piezo being derived from
Greek word means “pressure” depends upon the quality of a crystal find deals with
interaction among the mechanical and electric fields occurring in the materials. the
equational form is explained below:

D=ε × E

Where “D” depicts the displacement of electric charge having particular density, ε
depicts permittivity and electric field strength is represented by E.

The vehicle industry has been researching on different scenarios to make the vehicle
comfort table as well as harness energy but different ways. Since the mechanical
movement of the components of the vehicle causes vibrations, the piezoelectric
technology can be utilized in different parts including actuators, sensors, fuel injectors
and various parts of the system are related to safety purposes and so on. The actuators
using piezoelectric materials are employed by the vehicle industry to carry out
conversion from electrical signal to that of mechanical movement that will be helpful in
performing different tasks such as adjustment of mirrors and lenses, and adjustment of
other parts of the vehicle. In the similar way, the technology incorporated in fuel
injector have proved to be having more accuracy as compared to that of conventional
fuel injectors resulting in providing fuel efficiency as well as reduced carbon emissions.
Other applications are found in keyless door entry, audible alarms, pressure sensors of
tires, fuel atomizer, and other different parts of the vehicles (Kulkarni, Zohaib, Khusru
& Shravan Aiyappa, 2018).

The piezoelectric technology is based on not only the conversion from mechanical to
electrical energy, but it is comprised of different steps for the attainment of energy. The
piezoelectric transducer comprising of visual electric generator generates electricity
after undergoing the mechanical pressure which is rectified into DC by using AC to DC
converter or rectifier. This produced DC power is further boosted by using DC to DC
booster which is attached with an inverter to perform its conversion into AC that can be
utilized by either vehicle or streetlights, traffic signal and radar system

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1.2 Objectives
The main aim of this project was to design a piezoelectric device which can harvest
energy from the loading of vehicles moving on the highway. As highways are a busy
place day and night, therefore they show a high potential for the energy harvesting. In
order to perform this energy harvesting, different objectives were defined and
accomplished. Which are as follows

• Specification of the suitable material for the device

• Calculations for the input and outputs of the system

• Design of all mechanical components involved

• Design of piezoelectric device

• Design of circuit for minimal voltage drop

• Electrical analysis of circuit

1.3 Significance
In the current time where almost every product uses the electricity and the burden of the
load has increased with time. In this time the use of the piezoelectric devices as energy
harvesters can help in sharing the burden of the load. This project is of great
significance as it is helpful for making the environment clean as a renewable source of
energy. Also, this project can help to reuse the energy that is wasted by vehicles while
moving on road.

1.4 Report Organisation

This report contains five chapters which are arranged as follows, Chapter 1 provides
brief introduction to piezo electricity and the need for it. Chapter 2 presents the
background of the project and the reason behind the selection of this project. Chapter 3
discusses about the proposed approach. Chapter 4 describes the initial level of the
results and the modelling of the system. The report concludes with chapter 5.

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 2. Background
This chapter gives the introduction to the working of piezoelectric devices and the
materials which are used in such devices. The usage of piezoelectric materials as energy
harvesting devices along with the major concerns in the design of such devices i.e., the
losses in these devices has been presented. Different structures/configurations have also
been described in this chapter. At the end, a few methods on decreasing the losses in
Piezoelectric materials have also been given based on the literature available.

2.1 Piezoelectric Devices

The word piezo comes from Greek language which means “pressure”. The complete
“piezoelectric” means generation of electricity resulting from application of pressure.
From this, one can describe the piezoelectric materials (PEMs) as the materials which
produce electrical signals due to the application of certain external stimulus. Such
materials were first observed in the 18th century by C. Linnaeus, but the main research
was initiated by the Curie brothers. In their studies, they concluded that the application
of tensile and compressive loadings on PEMs resulted in the potentials which were
equal in magnitude but opposite in polarity (Ounaies, 2008). This has been illustrated in
Figure 1. similarly, the effect of exposure of such materials to the external fields was
also studied by the researchers. The studies concluded that the inverse effect also
existed, depending on the polarity of the external electric field, the strains were
generated in the piezoelectric materials. This caused either elongation or contraction in
the PEMs depending on the polarity as depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 1 (a) Direct mode of working of piezoelectric materials upon compressive stress (b) Direct mode of working
of piezoelectric materials upon tensile stress (Ounaies, 2008)

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 Figure 2 Inverse mode of working of piezoelectric materials upon application of electric field (b) Inverse mode of
working of piezoelectric materials upon application of reversed electric field (Ounaies, 2008)

2.2 Overview of Design and Procedure

The conceptual design is shown in figure 3 illustrates the movement of the vehicle tires
from that of harvesters that are installed under the ground. Moreover, the car’s weight
causes movement of upper plate of the harvester and downward direction that results in
driving the electromagnetic generator for the rotation as well as production of electrical
energy. The main factor is determination of deformation point among the contact page
and the hub of a wheel that helps in his striking the harvester. Whereas, the width of the
harvesting plate has to be determined in comparison with that of the vertical direction
(Dr. Lei Zuo, 2014)

Figure 3 Schematic diagram of the On-road Energy haversian system

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2.3 Energy Perspectives of Piezoelectric materials
In reference to above energy characteristics, it is necessary to discuss different
perspectives of piezoelectric energy. The figure below shows diagram of power density
in mW/cm3 against voltage for different technologies. The study shows that the power
density of the piezo electric material is quite high when compared with other harvesting
technologies such as fuel cells, solar cells, other storage and battery systems

Figure 4 Power density in mW/cm3 against Voltage for different technologies

In addition to the advanced level of power density is compared to different technologies,

another advantage is their ability of not affected by internal as well as external
electromagnetic waves. The wasted energy by the movement of either vehicles or
human beings can be converted into electrical power, it can be utilized for producing the
power at different places like roads, parks, clubs, buildings, and other busy places that
can be utilized for providing energy at the various levels such as streetlights or other
power generation purposes. The research performed shows that these materials can help
in generating the power not only by the disposition of the system on the roads but by
deposit depositing those elements within a wheel of a vehicle. The piezoelectric
material has now moved to another technology which is piezoelectric benders that are
basically in a circular shape having different diameters. When these materials are
attached with the tires they help in production of energy and reduced dependency of
hybrid cars on charging stations by charging the batteries through the conversion of
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mechanical energy into electrical energy. That research is based on connecting 40 rows
of four elements of piezoelectric materials that are bonded by the ribbon and their
installation is done in the inner layer of the tire. For the measurement as well as testing
of the power generated by visual electric material, the then dynamometer can be utilized
for the connection in parallel and the practical can be carried out by taking different
measurements related to weight of a car, speed and power generated by the vehicle. the
connection of the elements has to be made with rectification bridge their connection is
made in parallel with each other for the increase in the level of a current. It is to be
noted that the parallel connection increases the current, and the series connection
increases the voltage level. There is a need of increasing the current level and
piezoelectric material since the voltage is considerably high and it is achieved by
connecting the elements in parallel and series combination of transduces. This
installation system is shown in figure 11 below.

Figure 5 Piezoelectric elements installed in the inner layer of tires (a) Element bonding with tires (b) Connections of
the materials (Makki and Pop-Ilew, 2011)

The layout of the piezoelectric material is shown in figure having different dimensions
that have been formed while carrying out their research. The research conducted for
designing the piezoelectric material as shown in figure below that contains (a) a
treadmill or a rotating belt, (b) tire to which the piezoelectric elements have been
attached in an inner layer (c) metal frame and (d) weight of a vehicle

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 Figure 6 Illustration of energy harvesting from Piezoelectric setup (Somayyeh Hazeri, August 2017)

2.4 Classification of Piezoelectric materials

Depending on their occurrence, PEMs can be divided into two main groups i.e.,
naturally occurring PEMs and man-made. Quartz (SiO 2) and Topaz (Ounaies, 2008) are
some of the most prominent examples of naturally occurring PEMs. Man-made PEM
crystals belong to the polymers, composites as well as ceramics.

According to another classification (Harb, 2011), the sources which can be utilized for
energy harvesting can be divided into two main streams, one the energy coming from
humans and their movements/motions and the second one coming from the
environment.

Similarly, PEMs are also classified into four different classes based on the types of
materials which constitute them (H. Li et al., 2014). These include: Piezoelectric (PE)
polymers, PE ceramics, PE ceramic-polymer composites and PE single crystals.

PE polymers are the materials which contain long chains of carbons and exhibit the
piezoelectric effect due to their microstructure and orientation. The most commonly
used PE polymer is Polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF). One of the main characteristics
which distinguishes PE polymers from other PEMs is their ability to be deformed easily
and their use on the curved surfaces as well. Due to this flexibility, PVDF and other PE
polymers have been used energy harvesting systems incorporated in bags and footwear.

PE ceramics are the materials which are the ceramics suitable for PE applications, due
to their low cost and effective PE properties. These are polycrystalline materials, Lead
Zirconate Titanate (PZT) is one most used PE ceramic materials in the energy

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harvesting applications. For energy harvesting applications, PE ceramics can be used in
the form of thin films, thick films and plates when the external energy is of mechanical
nature. The selection of the piezoelectric device will depend on the external source
being used for energy harvesting which may be of any aforementioned type.

The reason behind the development of PE composites was to combine the exceptional
PE properties of ceramics and the flexibility of the polymers. These composites are
made by using the polymers and composites in a certain pattern. From the structural
aspect, the ceramics can be in the form of fibres or particles. Whereas polymer acts as
the matrix. PE ceramics consisting of PZT fibres have been extensively used in the
energy harvesting applications.

PE single crystal materials, as their name suggests are single crystal materials unlike the
PE ceramics. These single crystal materials have enhanced PE properties when
compared to the PE ceramics. PMN-PT is one of the widely used single crystal material.
Comparison has shown that the PMN-25%PT single crystal had a 20 times higher
power output as compared to the polycrystalline ceramic.

Following are some of the points which must be kept about the pros and cons of the
above-mentioned different types of PE materials.

 PE polymers although flexible but the magnitude of their output power lies in
the range of microwatts. These are more suitable for the low frequency
applications.
 PE ceramics are brittle in nature but their power output is usually on the scale of
milliwatts.
 PE single crystal materials are of high cost and their use as energy harvesting
devices is not frequent (H. Li et al., 2014).

2.5 Applications and Usage

Piezoelectric materials and the piezoelectricity have become the basis of many
engineering applications. Some of the pronounced areas these are being used have been
described below.

 The converse effect of piezoelectric materials as explained above can be used for
making the geometries of PEMs to contact or expand upon application of
external electric field. This can be utilized in the actuators where such materials
can be used for making pistons of actuators. These are particularly useful in the

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 areas where very minute movements and actuations up to the micron level are
needed.
 Piezoelectric crystals are also used for creating a spark in the ovens and fuel
ignition systems. This is due to the generation of high voltages through
generation of small deformations.
 PEMs have also found their way in the field of vibration and noise. The
structures can be equipped by such panels and the different defects can be
diagnosed at early stages of initiation using active control in conjunction with
PEMs.
 Energy harvesting is yet another remarkable field where PEMs are being
employed since past few decades. PEMs can be used to produce electrical
energy through the application of mechanical energy available in different forms
i.e., vibrations, impact and thermal. All of these forms can be used to generate
electrical energy through PEMs and hence energy harvesting can be performed.

Due to the depletion of non-renewable energy resources all over the globe and the
challenges posed by the increase in the carbon footprint and degradation of
environment, work has been initiated on the usage of renewable energy resources for the
production of electrical energy. These include solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear
energy. In order to cope up with the energy demand of the current age and as well as of
the future, energy efficient and cost-effective energy harvesting technologies must be
devised. Therefore, research on energy harvesting technologies has also been
commenced since last two decades. Along with the implementation of technologies for
the utilization of renewable energy resources. Energy harvesting is quite useful for the
micro systems which are to be self-powered. Watches, calculators and headsets are
some of the most common examples of such systems. The renewable energy sources
mentioned above, are the sources which can be used for harvesting energy on a macro
level, while for the micro level, the following sources can be utilized.

 Mechanical energy
 Thermal
 Pressure
 Biological
 Light
 Electromagnetics

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Two different structures or configurations of the piezoelectric devices are found in
literature, one is known as the cantilever configuration while the second is called the
cymbal structure (Sezer & Koç, 2021). As the name suggests for the cantilever
structure, the piezoelectric material layer is made into a cantilever structure i.e., fixed
from one end and free from the other. A mass is attached at the free end of the structure.
The vibrational motion of the cantilever structure is well suited for the producing large
strains during vibrations and hence large power outputs. These harvesting cantilever
structure may consist of one or two layers of PE material. If the structure contains two
layers, it is called bimorph structure. Whereas if it is called as unimorph in the case of a
single PE material layer as described in Figure 7.

Figure 7 Schematic for cantilever structure of Piezoelectric materials for energy harvesting (a) unimoprh
configuration (b) bimorph configuration (Sezer & Koç, 2021)

The cymbal structure is the other kind of energy harvesting structure, it is in the form a
cymbal which is a percussion instrument. The basic structure of cymbal is that it
contains two metallic cymbal shaped plates with piezoelectric material in between as
shown in Figure 8.

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 Figure 8 Schematic of cymbal structure piezoelectric device for energy harvesting purpose (Sezer & Koç, 2021)

This type of structures can generate larger power outputs as compared to the cantilever
structures and can be used for high values of mechanical loads. Another type of
structure called a stacked structure also exists. This structure is formed by arranging
different thin layers of piezoelectric material one above the other in the form of a stack.

In the field of energy harvesting, researchers developed a fully integrated energy

harvesting footwear system (Rocha et al., 2010). These types of devices have been
termed as low power wearable electronics. A polymeric piezoelectric material was
developed for the use in sole of footwear for the purposes of energy harvesting. The
polymeric material was chosen because of flexibility offered by the polymer films in
terms of formation into desired shape and size. Polymers are also cost effective as
compared to the piezoelectric ceramic materials. The piezoelectric films were placed
where the high pressures were exerted while walking. The experimental results
concluded that the voltages ranging from tens to hundreds of milliwatts were generated
using the developed footwear energy harvesting setup. To obtain further high voltages,
improvements in materials, electronics and energy transfer mechanisms were suggested.

Studies regarding the use of piezoelectric materials in roads utilizing the loads from the
moving vehicles for the energy harvesting purposes (Lee et al., 2010). During the
movement of the vehicles, the loadings that will be applied on the PEMs will be
dynamic in nature. An average value of the dynamic load was determined through a
road test. Lead Zirconate titanate (PZT) was the PEM used in this study. The variation
of energy harvested was evaluated as the external applied load increased. It was
observed that as the external load increased, the amount of harvested energy increased.
Moreover, the effect of load cell cover was also significant, when the load cell was
covered with Aluminum, the external load increased and hence the harvested energy.

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This indicates the usage of stiffer materials for the vibration impact purposes on the
piezoelectric crystal.

The work on theoretical calculations for the PEMs used in roads has also been
performed (R. Li et al., 2014). A piezoelectric transducer used with an asphalt road
layer was taken into consideration. The calculations were performed taking into account
the average small vehicle speed on highway i.e., 80 km/hour as per the JTG D20-2006
standard specifications. Bituminous mortar was the PEM used in this study. The layered
piezoelectric structure was simulated under the action of uniformly distributed load in a
software called BISAR. It was concluded that the highest stresses were generated
between the upper layer and the middle layer of the structure taken into consideration.
The output power and energy up to 0.67 mW and 2.65 mJ were obtained respectively.

A company named as Innowattech has also made efforts for realization of the harvesting
of energy from the transportation. They have tried to use different PE elements to utilize
the vibrational energy imparted to the asphalt layer of the roadways from the vehicles
(Moure et al., 2016). Similarly, researchers have also implemented the idea of
harvesting energy from the roadways using a cantilevered structured at a large scale
(Song et al., 2016). The optimization of the harvester was performed using the
maximum power transfer theorem and the impedance matching was performed.
Maximum power was given by the following equation.

( )
2
VS
Pmax = R L, opt (1)
ZS+ ZL

The 3D schematic of the PE energy harvester unit has been depicted in figure 7.

Figure 9 Schematic of 3D PE module used (Song et al., 2016)

A 30 x 30 x 10 cm3 module containing 48 piezoelectric cantilever beams was used. It

was concluded that a total energy of 2.95 kWh per hour when the vehicle load is about

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600 vehicles per hour. A similar study was using cantilever structures was carried out
for the speed bumps (Chen et al., 2017). As the speed of the vehicles varied, a
maximum of 74 % of energy was harvested and almost 1.26 mJ was the energy per
vehicle that crossed the speed bump. Figure 8 presents the equivalent circuit used in this
study.

Figure 10 Schematic of electrical equivalent of PE structure along with values of the parameters (Chen et al., 2017)

2.6 Losses in Piezoelectric materials

One of the main aspects which must be considered in the piezoelectric devices for
energy harvesting is the losses which may occur and decrease the power output of the
piezoelectric. The power density of the device is reduced due to the losses associated
with these devices. In order to make devices capable of harvesting energy more
efficiently, these losses must be minimized. Therefore, one must have knowledge about
different losses which take place in piezoelectric materials and the mechanisms due to
which these take place. These losses can be categorized as follows.

 Piezoelectric losses
 Mechanical
 Dielectric

The piezoelectric material can behave as either piezoelectric, elastic material or as a

dielectric (Cain et al., 2002). As no material is neither perfectly elastic nor a perfect
dielectric therefore, the power losses and the mechanical losses (in the form of heat) due
to charge movement and friction respectively will always be there. And as these
materials portray a piezoelectric behavior therefore and no material is an ideal
piezoelectric therefore, there will be delay and phase lag. The delay in the response of

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the piezoelectric device is termed as Piezoelectric loss. This delay can be in the
electrical response of the device during the conventional configuration in which
mechanical stimulus is applied due to the changes in resistance or it may be due to the
frictional losses in the inverse configuration (González et al., 2016).

Losses due to the microscopic defects in the materials can also occur. These are due to
the microscopic energy loss mechanism which occur when the external stimulus acts on
the material. These may include deformation of the lattices and grain boundaries of the
material at the microscopic level. Furthermore, the hysteresis poses a serious problem
mainly for the actuator applications because the hysteresis occurs in strain and hence
disturbs the positional accuracy of actuators (Uchino, 2020).

As previously described, one must also know the mechanisms of the losses in
piezoelectric materials. For the case of PE ceramic materials, four different kinds of
mechanisms have been defined which are responsible for the losses.

 Microstructural defects
 Lattice dynamics
 Interaction of different microstructural features
 D.C conductivity in highly ohmic materials

Different mathematical models have been developed for describing the elastic as well as
the electrical behavior of the piezoelectric material. One of the earliest models for
piezoelectric coupling coefficient i.e., a parameter for quantifying the effectiveness with
which the piezoelectric material converts the mechanical energy into electrical energy
or vice-versa, has been given (George A. Lesieutre & Davis, 1997). They used the
vector notation for developing the constitutive equation for the linear piezoelectric
ceramic material. The following was the basic equation in contracted form.

{}[ ]{ }
E T
T =c −e ¿S (2)
D e εS ¿E
Where E is the electric field vector, T is the stress vector, S is the strain vector, D is the
electric displacement vector, e is the matrix of piezoelectric coefficients, c E and ϵ s are
the matrices of elastic coefficients and dielectric primitivities.

From which they further concluded the effective coupling coefficient for any
electromechanical state to be

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 2 U coup
k = (3)
U mech +U elec

Where U coup is the coupled energy density while U mech and U elec are the mechanical and
electrical energy densities respectively.

Figure 11 General electrical circuit representation of a piezoelectric energy harvesting device (G. A. Lesieutre et al.,
2004)

Piezoelectric energy harvesting element can be modelled as an electric circuit in terms

of capacitors, diodes, inductors, and a 1 st order sinusoidal current source. One such
model has been given in figure 9 (G. A. Lesieutre et al., 2004). They concluded the
modal loss factor under the harmonic forces on piezoelectric crystal. It was determined
that the loss factor depended on the electromechanical coupling coefficient and the
following equation was deduced for the effective loss factor at optimal power transfer.

2
2 k sys
η= (4)
π ( 2−k 2sys )

And for low values of coupling coefficients this can be reduced to the following form

2
k sys
η= (5)
π

Where η is the effective loss factor and k 2sys is the coupling coefficient.

Authors also conducted the experimentation using a QuickPack ® piezoelectric device.

And it was found that the experimental results for damping were in accordance with the

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developed theory. Therefore, showing that the developed analytical model was suitably
described the overall system.

Researchers have studied different PE materials and tried to conclude the materials with
minimum losses and to devise the ways to decrease the losses. The literature studied
was not consistent, according to some researchers, the single crystal PE materials
exhibited lower values of losses due to absence of grain boundaries whereas other PE
materials exhibited higher losses (Maeder et al., 2004). But on the other hand, the
studies presented by some researchers showed that a huge number of losses occurred in
the single crystal materials. Some treatments of the ceramic materials can also cause the
losses to decrease. This treatment includes the annealing to the PE material at high
temperatures. Similarly, the microscopic defects in the PE materials must be eliminated
in order to obtain PE materials with higher efficiencies. The work must also be done on
the minimization of the mechanical losses in order to increase the mechanical efficiency
of the overall system.

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 3. Proposed Approach
The project will be broken down into number of tasks to achieve the required objective.
The circuit simulation will be done using the proteus and MATLAB software which is
available in ECU labs. Circuit simulation needs to be done in order to test the circuit
using the software instead of manually tangling with the wires and avoid any mishap
which can add up to the cost of the project or delay the process. This will also help us
getting the idea about the size of the parts that are to be used. Selection of the
piezoelectric material to be used in making the piezoelectric sheets is a very important
step. For that research was performed and materials were shortlisted which are lead
zirconate titanate (PZT), PMN-PT and PZN-PT which demonstrate the highest
piezoelectric properties. The PMN-PT and PZN-PT have the highest efficiency as
compared to available in the market. (Yang, 2018) They more sensitive to temperature
change, more likely to fatigue and difficult to manufacture. The piezoelectric material
layer goes under the layer of other materials that are required to make the roads
therefore, material selection is an important aspect of the piezoelectric device design.
The materials should be such that there should be minimum losses due to the material
i.e., defects etc. as presented in the literature review section. So, that minimum loss of
energy occurred. Moreover, to make sure that the device works fine under the loads
encountered, the mechanical design and analysis was also performed. The design of the
single piezoelectric cantilever beam was done according to the literature studied, the
modal and stress analysis was performed.

18
 4. Preliminary Results and Discussions
This section presents the work done on the preliminary design and the analysis of the
piezoelectric device.

4.1 Mechanical design and Analysis

One of the most common type of analysis is quasi-static analysis, in which the load is
applied at a very slow rate, resulting in negligible acceleration. Apart from this analysis,
the modal analysis is also there which provides an overview of the limits of a system's
response. For instance, what are the system's response limits for a specific input? In
other words, Modal analysis is an analysis in which the dynamic properties of the
structures are study in terms of frequencies. Their mode shapes under different
frequencies can also be evaluated. Identification of the natural frequency or the
resonance frequency is important in the case of piezoelectric materials because
theoretically, the piezoelectric device converted the mechanical energy into electrical
energy most effectively if the resonance occurs, but in order to prevent any catastrophic
failure of the devices, the operation must take place slightly below the natural
frequency. This natural frequency of the device depends on its design and the material
choice. Therefore, along with the static-structural analysis, the modal analysis of the
system was also carried out.
In order to perform the mechanical design of the piezoelectric device, the first step was
to determine the specifications which the device would encounter during the working
life. For this purpose, the dimensions of the wheels, the wheelbase, contact areas and the
pressure were to be determined. Here the design of a single piezoelectric unimorph
cantilever has been undertaken, which can be replicated to form a complete unit for
enhancing the energy harvesting process.
According to the literature, the light vehicles have a contact width of about 109-200 mm
while the contact width of heavy vehicles vary from 160-259 mm (Wang et al., 2020).
Therefore, it was decided to keep the width of a single beam equal to 10 mm so that
whole unit the example of which is pictured in figure 7 above could make up to the
average contact width of the vehicles and hence the efficient load transfer could take
place.
width of cantilever beam=10 mm
width of the piezoelectric mateiral=10 mm
Furthermore, the thickness of the piezoelectric material as well as the substrate layer
were selected according to the literature.
thickness of the substrate=0.5 mm
19
 thickness of the piezoelectric material=0.75 mm
The most common materials were selected for design of the piezoelectric energy
harvester. The substrate was kept of Steel. While the PZT-5H, a ceramic piezoelectric
material was to be used because of its excellent piezoelectric behaviour and mechanical
properties not very different from the steel used as the substrate. The following table
highlights the material properties of the material used in the analysis of the piezoelectric
device.
Table 1 Material properties used

Property Piezoelectric Material Substrate Material

Youngs Modulus (GPa) 61.1 210
Density (kg/m3) 7500 7800
Poisson Ratio 0.3 0.3

In order to analyse a single piezoelectric device from a mechanical aspect i.e., to

evaluate the strength of the device structure to the subjected loads. The computer aided
design (CAD) model of the device was developed in design modeller of ANSYS. Three
components i.e., the piezoelectric material, the substrate and the additional mass were
modelled as three different bodies and were designed to be perfectly bonded with each
other in the form of a device.
As mentioned before, the device was designed as a cantilever, therefore, one end of the
device was fixed using a fixed boundary condition as shown in figure 13.

Figure 12 Fixed boundary condition for cantilever beam

As the device was to be subjected to the loading from the vehicles, therefore, the
pressure load which the device was to encounter during passing of one vehicle was
applied. The value of 0.2 MPa was used in the initial analysis.

20
The results for three different responses were obtained and analysed. The deformation
plot as shown in figure x shows that the deformation was not much significant and the
maximum deformation was of about 1.1 mm, which was within the acceptable limits
keeping the complete design of the piezoelectric unit in consideration.

Figure 13 Results for total deformation

Similarly, the von-misses stress plot was also obtained. As depicted by figure 14, the
maximum stress occurred in the substrate but that too was under the yield stress value of
the substrate material used i.e., 350 MPa for the Steel.

Figure 14 Results for equivalent von-misses

The result for the equivalent strain were also obtained and has been shown in the figure
15.

21
 Figure 15 Results for elastic strain

Modal analysis was also carried out in order to evaluate the natural frequency of the
designed device. The following plot was obtained and as it can be seen that the natural
frequency of the designed device was quite high i.e., 375 Hz. Hence the probability of
the resonance was minimum and consequently the probability of failure due to
resonance.

Figure 16 Results for total deformation

The analysis performed above concludes that this unimorph configuration with an
additional mass can be used for energy harvesting. The proposed design is safe from a
mechanical aspect, the results of modal as well as static analysis dictate that. According
to the results of the von-misses, the existing factor of safety in the design was about 1.2,
which is quite sufficient in such applications.

22
4.2 Modelling in Proteus

Figure 17 Simulation results in proteus

4.3 Code on Arduino UNO

23
4.4 Result of the Proteus Simulation

Figure 18 Results with change in input

When the input push button is not pressed, the output shows the value equal to zero

Figure 19 Output when input is zero

When the input push button is pressed, the output shows the value equal to 783 values

24
 Figure 20 Output when input is applied

4.5 Modelling in Simulink

Figure 21 Simulink Model for Piezo energy generation

The above model is the production of the electricity through the piezoelectricity. The
two signals are used for the harvesting of the electricity one is the chirp and the other is
the sinusoidal. As the car moves with the different speed so we use the chirp which is
the vibrational signal at the input. The change in the speed leads to the change in the
output level.

4.6 Model Overview

The harvester circuit contains the piezo circuit and the converter with the rectifier
circuit. The left side of the piezo is connected with the vibrational source and it acts as
the input. The mass is present at the right side for making strong synchronization
between the right and the left side. The change in the level of the input leads to the
change in the level of the output and the power is harvested based on the input signal.
The generated power is converted to the DC with the use of the rectifier circuit and the
purification of the DC is made with the use of the capacitor and the inductor. The buck
converter is used mostly to step down the level of the voltage according to the demand.
The use of the converter in this work is to make the transfer of the power in
unidirectional and ensure it to transfer the maximum power to the load.

25
4.7 Battery Result

Figure 22 Battery charge result

Figure 23 Battery current result

26
Figure 24 Power dissipation across the battery

Figure 25 Voltage across the battery

27
4.8 Converter Results

Figure 26 Converter results

The converter voltage is changed as the buck converter changes the level of the voltage
and it observed in the figure that the output voltage of the buck converter is more linear
as compared to the input. The output power of the signal depends upon the resonance
created. The power is increased when the signal is approaching towards the resonance,
and it starts decreasing when the source signal is deviating the resonance frequency.

28
 5. Conclusion
The energy harvesting from piezoelectric materials is great project to showcase one’s
engineering abilities and get the hands-on experience about what it is like to work as an
engineer professionally and solve a certain problem in a given problem. The world
needs more renewable resources in order to be sustainable and piezoelectricity is good
source of clean energy production. Even though, the energy produced is very little as
compared to other sources, but this project is all about recovering the energy that is
being wasted by the vehicles on the road daily. An initial design of a piezoelectric
device in a cantilever configuration was performed. The mechanical design and analysis
were performed to evaluate the levels of stresses generated in the materials used for the
energy harvesting. The modal analysis was performed in order to obtain the natural
frequency of the whole cantilever beam. After the mechanical analysis, the electrical
analysis of the device was performed to analyse the working of the device from the
electrical point of view. No doubt that the energy harvested is lower as compared to the
energy generated but keeping in mind the potential these materials and devices offer one
cannot neglect the importance of these devices. The piezo electricity sector has long to
go but has the potential of getting recognition worldwide. In a nutshell, this project is a
great opportunity for students to apply the knowledge of the past years learning into the
practice. This will give students a chance to work under the supervision and meet the
requirements under the given timeline.

29
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 Risk Assessment
Current Level of Residual Level of
Risk Risk
Risk Reference

Risk Risk Owner Time Line for

Consequences Current Risk Treatments Additional

Consequence

Consequence
Completion of
Risk

Risk Level

Risk Level
Likelihood

Likelihood
Ranking

Ranking
(Cause of risks to be (Responsible Areas Additional Risk
Treatments
entered in italics) are in italics) Treatments

Loss of
data, No
Performing Electric Utility
damage to further
Power outage simulations in the 2 3 6 M 1 1 1 L and Distribution Hours to Days
the action companies
labs
computing required
systems
Crashing
Using High No
Crashing of of IT company or
Performance further
analysis software, 1 2 2 L 1 1 1 L IT software Hours to Days
Computing action developer
software loss of
systems required
data.
Crashing
Crashing of No
of Careful saving IT company or
word further
software, and sorting of 1 1 1 L 1 1 1 L IT software Hours to Days
processing action developer
loss of files
software required
data.
Careful collection
Loss of
of material No
Premature time, loss Researcher,
properties from further
failure of of 2 1 2 L 1 1 1 L Engineers and Hours to Days
literature and action Procurer
initial design resources
adopting proper required
and effort
methodology
Ransomware Loss of Anti-malwares 1 4 4 L No 1 1 1 L IT company or Hours to Days

1
 and anti-virus
softwares
data, time installed on the further
IT software
and systems on which action developer
resources. the simulations required
are to be
performed
No
Burning of Using high
Loss of further Accessory
Computer quality power 3 1 3 L 1 1 1 L
Supplier
Hours
time action
cables cables
required
Precautionary
measures and
Loss of No
availability of the
Fire hazard in equipment, further Days to
precautionary 2 3 6 M 1 1 1 L Building Ownwe
Months
lab data and action
equipment as per
time required
health and safety
standards
No
Waste of Following the Researcher and
Incompletion further Days to
all the timeline as 2 5 10 S 1 1 1 L Co-rodination
Months
of project action team
effort decided initially
required

Activity Risk Rating 1.00 Low

2
Gantt chart
23-Jul 11-Sep 31-Oct 20-Dec 8-Feb 30-Mar 19-May

literature Review (M1)1-Aug-21 30

data collection (M2) 20-Sep-21 50

Methodology development (M3) 21-Sep-21 10

Proposal submission 1-Oct-21 3

Initial Design (M4) 7-Oct-21 10

Initial Stress Analysis (M5) 17-Oct-21 2

Strain Analysis 18-Oct-21 2

Modal analysis 20-Oct-21 2

Initial Electrical modelling and analysis (M6) 22-Oct-21 4

Progress report (M7) 26-Oct-21 3

Final material selection 1-Nov-21 20

Final mechanical design (M8) 1-Dec-21 60

Final mechanical analysis 1-Feb-22 30

Final electrical design and analysis (M9) 1-Mar-22 60

Final report submission (M10) 1-May-22 20