Simulated and measured piezoelectric energy harvesting of dynamic load in tires.

From 2007 in US and from 2022 in EU it is mandatory to use TPMS monitoring in new cars. Sensors mounted in tires require a continuous power supply, which currently only is from batteries. Piezoelectric energy harvesting is a promising technology to harvest energy from tire movement and deformation to prolong usage of batteries and even avoid them inside tires. This study presents a simpler method to simultaneous model the tire deformation and piezoelectric harvester performance by using a new simulation approach - dynamic bending zone. For this, angular and initial velocities were used for rolling motion, while angled polarization was introduced in the model for the piezoelectric material to generate correct voltage from tire deformation. We combined this numerical simulation in COMSOL Multiphysics with real-life measurements of electrical output of a piezoelectric energy harvester that was mounted onto a tire. This modelling approach allowed for 10 times decrease in simulation time as well as simpler investigation of systems parameters influencing the output power. By using experimental data, the simulation could be fine-tuned for material properties and for easier extrapolation of tire deformation with output harvested energy from simulations done at low velocity to the high velocity experimental data.
Competing Interests: The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests Cristina Rusu reports financial support was provided by 10.13039/501100000780European Commission. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)