Dramatic Enhancement of Elastic Wave Energy Harvesting Using a Gradient-Index Phononic Crystal Lens

In this paper, we explore structure-borne elastic wave energy harvesting, both numerically and experimentally, by exploiting a Gradient-Index Phononic Crystal Lens (GRIN-PCL) structure. The proposed GRIN-PCL is formed by an array of blind holes with different diameters on an aluminum plate where the orientation and size of the blind holes are tailored to obtain a hyperbolic secant gradient distribution of refractive index guided by finite-element simulations of the lowest asymmetric mode Lamb wave band diagrams. Under plane wave excitation from a line source, experimentally measured wave field successfully validates the numerical simulation of wave focusing within the GRIN-PCL domain. A piezoelectric energy harvester disk located at the first focus of the GRIN-PCL yields an order of magnitude larger power output as compared to the baseline case of energy harvesting without the GRIN-PCL on the uniform plate counterpart for the same incident plane wave excitation. The power output is further improved by a factor of five using complex electrical load impedance matching through resistive-inductive loading as compared to purely resistive loading case.