Numerical and experimental study of a gauge-shaped beam for improved performance of piezoelectric energy harvester

This paper examines a new, non-conventional, gauge-shaped beam (GSB) cantilever for enhanced vibration energy scavenging. The stress evolution of the GSB as well as its eigenfrequency and energy harvesting capability (when coupled with macro fiber composite (MFC) transducer) are investigated by finite element method. A comparison of performance between the proposed GSB cantilever configuration and conventional harvester of equal mass is also conducted. Both the simulation and experimental validation results showed that the gauge-shaped beam cantilever configuration has lower resonant frequencies and improved power output when used as harvester substrate. Further, we evaluated the effect of tip mass orientation/position on the GSB harvester performance by considering five different configurations namely, Confg A, Confg B, Confg C, Confg D and Confg E. The analysis shows that Confg A with $$5 \times 20 \times 5\,{\text{mm}}^{3}$$ tipmass dimension has the highest effect of 9.8% on the output power of the harvester compared to the other configurations. However, Confg C and D have the lowest resonant frequencies at fundamental vibration mode.