Tuning of a Piezoelectric Harvester by Means of a Cantilever Spring-Mass System

The possibility of improving the performance of a piezoelectric harvester by means of a cantilever dynamic vibration absorber (CDVA) is investigated. The CDVA cancels the original mode of vibration of the harvester and generates two new modes. Some prototypes are developed using a mathematical model for predicting the natural frequencies of the coupled system. Impulsive tests were performed on prototypes. Experimental results show that a small CDVA can lower the main resonance frequency of an harvester of the same extent as a larger tip mass. The measured voltage shows also an high frequency resonance peak, which can be exploited for collecting energy. A multi-physics numerical model is developed for performing modal analysis and stress analysis. Numerical results show that the stress inside the piezoelectric material of the harvester with CDVA results smaller than the stress inside the harvester with a tip mass tuned to the same frequency.