Modeling of a Rope-Driven Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester for Low-Frequency and Wideband Energy Harvesting

In this work, a mechanical model of a rope-driven piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH) for low-frequency and wideband energy harvesting was presented. The rope-driven PVEH consisting of one low-frequency driving beam (LFDB) and one high-frequency generating beam (HFGB) connected with a rope was modeled as two mass-spring-damper suspension systems and a massless spring, which can be used to predict the dynamic motion of the LFDB and HFGB. Using this model, the effects of multiple parameters including excitation acceleration, rope margin and rope stiffness in the performance of the PVEH have been investigated systematically by numerical simulation and experiments. The results show a reasonable agreement between the simulation and experimental study, which demonstrates the validity of the proposed model of rope-driven PVEH. It was also found that the performance of the PVEH can be adjusted conveniently by only changing rope margin or stiffness. The dynamic mechanical model of the rope-driven PVEH built in this paper can be used to the further device design or optimization.