Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting with a Clamped Circular Plate: Experimental Study

In a companion article, a model for a clamped circular unimorph piezoelectric plate has been developed for the purpose of analyzing the influence of geometric design parameters and electrode configuration on the amount of electrical energy that can be harvested from an applied pressure source. It has been shown that the ratio of layer thickness (piezoelectric layer to substrate layer) and electrode pattern have a significant effect on energy conversion for harvesting. Specifically, the theoretical analysis shows that regrouping of the electrodes (i.e., segmenting the electrode into a specific pattern) can lead to optimized energy harvesting in a clamped circular plate structure. This article provides experimental validation of these results. In this article, three circular plate piezoelectric energy generators (PEGs), one unmodified and two regrouped unimorph PEGs, were used to support the analysis.