Bistable vibration harvesting system of diagonally supported spring-mass by using piezoelectric element

Vibrational energy harvesting by application of stochastic resonance is receiving more and more attentions at the international level in recent years. However, the vibrational power conversion efficiency is still limited due to small excitation amplitude of the traditional bistable vibration model, and how to develop a high-efficient vibration energy harvester has been become an important research topic. Therefore, this study proposed a diagonally supported spring-mass system as a novel bistable vibration energy harvester using a piezoelectric element. In this system, the ordinary elastic spring has been replaced by an elastic bending plate with a spring; furthermore, the piezoelectric element is attached on the surface of the elastic bending plate to harvest vibration power. On the basis of a comprehensively theoretical analysis, Runge-Kutta method is adopted to propose a numerical analysis method, and the vibrational analysis results are consistent with the measuring results. With the procedure of experimental study, as a result vibrational response amplitude was greatly amplified under the occurrence of stochastic resonance phenomenon.