Adaptation of an Energy Harvester Working in the Bending Mode to Utilize Dielectric Elastomers

Abstract

The bending mode in energy harvesting applications is generally used in combination with piezoelectric materials. This results from the fact that the mechanical strains appearing directly in the beam are very small but in most cases sufficient to induce piezoelectric effects in ceramic materials like PZT. The mechanism behind energy harvesting using dielectric elastomers is different as it relies on changing their electrical capacitance through changing dimensions. To obtain significant differences in elastomer shape due to beam tip deflection it is necessary to introduce construction modifications to the classic energy harvester based on cantilever beam. The scope of this work covers numerical simulations performed to assess the feasibility of such a structure.