Performance of pre-deformed flexible piezoelectric cantilever in energy harvesting

This paper proposes a novel structure for pre-rolled flexible piezoelectric cantilevers that use wind energy to power a submunition electrical device. Owing to the particular installation position and working environment, the submunition piezoelectric cantilever should be rolled when not working, but this pre-rolled state can alter the energy harvesting performance. Herein, a working principle and installation method for piezoelectric cantilevers used in submunitions are introduced. To study the influence of the pre-rolled state, pre-rolled piezoelectric cantilevers of different sizes were fabricated and their performances were studied using finite element analysis simulations and experiments. The simulation results show that the resonance frequency and stiffness of the pre-rolled structure is higher than that of a flat structure. Results show that, (1) for both the pre-rolled and flat cantilever, the peak voltage will increase with the wind speed. (2) The pre-rolled cantilever has a higher critical wind speed than the flat cantilever. (3) For identical wind speeds and cantilever sizes, the peak voltage of the flat cantilever (45 V) is less than that of the pre-rolled cantilever (56 V). (4) Using a full-bridge rectifier, the output of the pre-rolled cantilever can sufficiently supply a 10 μF capacitor, whose output voltage may be up to 23 V after 10 s. These results demonstrate that the pre-rolled piezoelectric cantilever and its installation position used in this work are more suitable for submunition, and its output sufficiently meets submunition requirements.