Sensors and Actuators A 236 (2015) 173–179

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sna

An arc-shaped piezoelectric generator for multi-directional wind

energy harvesting
Jiangxin Zhao, Jin Yang ∗ , Zhiwei Lin, Nian Zhao, Jun Liu, Yumei Wen, Ping Li
Department of Optoelectronic Engineering, Research Center of Sensors and Instruments, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, People’s Republic of
China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, a piezoelectric wind energy harvester was demonstrated, which aimed at addressing the
Received 11 June 2015 limitations of the existing approaches including single-directional operation and narrow working wind
Received in revised form speed range. In the harvester, an arc-shaped elastic beam, instead of conventional thin cantilever beams,
30 September 2015
was adopted to extract wind energy. Benefiting from the beam’s characteristics of arc-shaped struc-
Accepted 28 October 2015
ture and elasticity, the harvester is capable of scavenging wind energy without any extra accessory and
Available online 2 November 2015
responding to multi-directional wind excitations. An analytical model was established to investigate
the effects of wind direction and structural parameters on the electrical output. In test, the harvester
Keywords:
Wind energy harvester
worked efficiently with wind coming from four directions in a speed range of 2–17 m/s and produced a
Flow-induced-vibration maximum open-circuit voltage up to 34 V. When connected to an external load of 15 k, the harvester
Multi-directional showed a peak output power of 1.73 mW at 17 m/s. In addition, 18 serial-connected commercial light-
Wide wind speed range emitting diodes (LEDs) were lit up simultaneously at the wind speed of 10.5 m/s, which confirmed the
Arc-shaped elastic beam practicability of the harvester.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction energy caused by vortex shedding. Adopting the similar principle,

As the needs for the portable and wireless electronics have
been growing rapidly, methods to harvest ambient environmental
energy to power these electronics have been extensively inves-
tigated during the past decades [1–6]. Due to its ubiquity and
abundance [7,8], wind energy can be an ideal and environmentally-
friendly source for energy-harvesting system and has long been
actively exploited since the invention of windmill [9–12]. Although
large-size turbine generators have high conversion efficiency
and high output power, the disadvantages of small-size turbine
generators include structural complexity, high fabrication and
maintenance costs and unfavorable scalability because of the
increased proportion of friction losses with the reduced area of
blade surfaces [13]. To overcome these drawbacks, harvesting flow-
induced vibrations due to vortex shedding, fluttering and galloping
has been suggested as a potential alternative recently [14–17]. Allen
and Smits [18] studied a wind energy-harvesting eel by placing a
piezoelectric membrane in the wake of a bluff body to harness the
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yangjin@cqu.edu.cn (J. Yang).
another wind energy converter was developed [19], which utilized
a “piezo-leaf” device consisting of a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)
cantilever. In these harvesters, bluff bodies are indispensable. What
is more, these vortex shedding-based harvesters can only operate
efficiently in a narrow wind speed range generally from 2 m/s to
6.5 m/s. An example of extracting energy from fluttering was pre-
sented by Bryant and Garcia [20], and they fabricated a piezoelectric
bimorph with a flap at its tip. The working wind speed range is from
1.9 m/s to 5 m/s. Sirohi and Mahadik [21] investigated a galloping
energy harvester consisting of a piezoelectric cantilever attached to
a prism with D-shaped cross section. However, the output power
is negligible when wind speed is below 12.5 m/s due to its inherent
structural damping. Furthermore, all of the harvesters mentioned
above operated well with wind blowing from just one direction.
But in natural environment, the direction of wind is generally time-
varying, rendering the above-mentioned harvesters impractical. A
study on the responses of a polymer piezoelectric energy harvester
under wind excitations from three directions was done by Li et al.
[22], but the wind speed range was narrow (0.5–4.7 m/s).
In this study, we present a novel design consisting of an arc-
shaped elastic piezoelectric beam which is capable of harvesting

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2015.10.047
0924-4247/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
174 J. Zhao et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 236 (2015) 173–179
Fig. 1. Wind energy harvester and experimental setup: (a) a photograph of the fabricated harvester (b) schematic of the experimental setup and (c) a photograph of the
experimental setup.
the energy from the wind with a wide speed range as well as coming
from different directions.
2. Device design and experimental set-up
A photograph of a wind energy harvester is shown in Fig. 1(a).
The harvester consisted of an arc-shaped elastic beam, a piezo-
electric ceramic transducer (PZT) patch, and a fixture. Both ends
of the elastic beam were fixed to the fixture, while the arcuated
part in the middle of the beam was free and could oscillate under
wind excitations. In the prototype, the arc-shaped beam was 60 mm
in length and 40 mm in width, manufactured with 0.06-mm-thick
copper sheet (C17200). Considering the ratio of PZT thickness to
copper substrate thickness and the crispness of the PZT pitch [23],
a 0.2-mm-thick PZT-5 patch was chosen, and its length and width
were 20 mm and 14 mm, respectively. To experience the largest
strain and thus produce the maximum power, the PZT patch was
attached to the root of the beam by an epoxy layer. The space of the
arc was defined as ‘a’ while the space of the beam’s ends as ‘b’, and
their values were 46 mm and 20 mm, respectively. Furthermore,
the direction of wind flow, and those along the harvester’s length
and width were represented by w, L and d, respectively. Based on
the aerodynamic theories, wind from arbitrary directions will cause
the oscillation of the elastic beam, and then a deformation is trans-
mitted to the PZT patch. Because of the piezoelectric effect of the
PZT material, an electrical field is induced between the two surfaces
of the patch and we can obtain the electrical power contained in
the electrical field through an external circuit.
All experiments were performed in a small wind tunnel. We
used a commercial wind blower as the wind source and connected
it to a homemade flow channel with a diameter of 200 mm. The
experimental wind speed range was from 2 m/s to 17 m/s, manu-
ally controlled by a variable frequency motor and measured using
a digital aerometer with the resolution of 0.1 m/s from Benetech
(GM8902). The time history of the output waveform was monitored
and recorded by a digital oscilloscope from Tektronix (TDS2022B).
The schematic and photograph of the experimental setup are
shown in Fig. 1(b) and (c).
3. Modeling of the harvester
When the harvester operates under the wind with an incident
angle ˛, a coupled single degree of freedom (SDOF) model can be
applied to analyze the electro-flow-structural coupling behavior of
the harvester, and the model takes into account the electromechan-
ical coupling effect, as well as the interaction between the wind
flow and the elastic beam [24,25]. The governing equations are
given by

M˛ ÿ˛ + C˛ ẏ˛ + K˛ y˛ − V˛ = F˛
(1)
Cp V̇˛ + V˛ (Rl )−1 +  ẏ˛ = 0
whereM˛ is the equivalent mass, C˛ is the equivalent damping coef-
ficient and K˛ is the equivalent stiffness of the elastic beam; Rl and
V˛ are the applied load resistance and the voltage across the elec-
trical load, respectively; Cp is the capacitance of the PZT patch;
is the electromechanical coupling coefficient; y˛ is the arcuated
part’s displacement normal to L and d; F˛ is the aerodynamic force
as the excitation term. The dot symbol stands for differentiation
with respect to time t. In Eq. (1), the aerodynamic model estab-
lished here is based on the quasi-steady hypothesis [16,26,27], and
the aerodynamic force F˛ is given by
1
F˛ = U 2 D˛ Cy (2)
2
where , Uand D˛ are the air density, the wind speed and the char-
acteristic dimension of the elastic beam normal to the incident
wind, respectively. Cy is the instantaneous aerodynamic coefficient
 J. Zhao et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 236 (2015) 173–179
Fig. 2. Simulation of the stress distribution and the wind-induced oscillating motion characteristics of the elastic beam. (a) stress distributions by COMSOL (b) instant motion
patterns at its eigenfrequencies by COMSOL and (c) motion photographs of the beam.
and can be expressed as a polynomial function of the incident angle
of the wind␣ [16,26,28].

m

n
ẏ
i j
Cy = Ai (˛) + Aj (˛)
|ẏ|
i=1 j=2
whereAi andAj are the empirical coefficients, and they are closely
related to the geometrical characteristics of the beam, especially
the structural parameters of ‘a’ and ‘b’. In addition, according to
aerodynamic theory, when the wind excites the beam on its arc, the
elastic beam will oscillate because of the periodic vortex shedding
on its surface. The frequency of the vortex shedding is determined
as
SU
fs =
a
where fs is the vortex shedding frequency, Sis the dimensionless
Strouhal number. When the vortex shedding frequency is close to
the eigenfrequency of the harvester, the harvester will get into res-
onance and the oscillating amplitude of the beam will be enhanced,
and thus the electrical output. The characterization of the har-
vester’s eigenfrequencyf0 can be expressed by [29,30]
 harvester will get into resonance and the electrical output will be
1 K˛
f0 =
2 M˛
It is obvious that, under the wind with the same incident angle
˛,K˛ is negatively correlated to the value of ‘a/b’, while the change of
M˛ is negligible with different values of ‘a/b’ in our harvester. Thus,
with a fixed value of ‘b’, a larger value of ‘a’ will lead to a smaller
eigenfrequency of the harvester. Finally, the Reynolds number Re is
another important parameter in wind energy harvesting based on
flow-induced vibration, which can reflect the flowing state of the
wind as well as the oscillating pattern of the harvester. When the
wind excites the beam on its arc, Reis defined as
Ua
Re =

where is the absolute viscosity of the air. According to the above
equations, it can be found that, the performance of the harvester
is significantly influenced by the incident angle of the wind˛, the
wind speed Uand the structural parameters of ‘a’ and ‘b’.
175
4. Results and discussions
In order to verify the responses of the harvester under wind
excitations from various directions, we first simulated the stress
(3)
distributions of the arc-shaped beam in four distinct operating
modes by the software of COMSOL Multiphysics. Different modes
are determined by the relative directions among w, L and d. To be
more specific, when w is perpendicular to both L and d, we define it
as mode I or II, and where the windward of the harvester contains
PZT, it is further defined as mode I. The mode that w is perpendic-
ular to L and parallel to d is regarded as mode III. In mode IV, w is
perpendicular to d and parallel to L. Fig. 2(a) shows the simulated
stress distribution results. We find that stress appears in all modes,
indicating that the harvester is capable of responding to wind from
(4) different directions. Furthermore, the largest stress appears near
the clamped ends of the arc-shaped beam in all modes, which will
guide us to select this position as the optimal PZT location to achieve
a large electrical output.
According to aerodynamic theory, the wind-induced oscillating
frequencies and the motion patterns of the beam will vary with
the exciting wind speeds [31]. When the wind-induced oscillat-
ing frequency is close to the eigenfrequency of the harvester, the
(5) enhanced. Therefore, we also investigated the wind-induced oscil-
lating patterns of the harvester at resonance using the software
of COMSOL Multiphysics by setting the ends of the elastic beam
clamped and observing the beam’s oscillating characteristics at
eigenfrequencies, and the results are depicted in Fig. 2(b). As can be
observed from the instant motion analysis results, at lower eigen-
frequencies of 15.28 Hz, 49.36 Hz and 101.67 Hz, the beam moves
forth and back normal to L and d, along with the deformation of
the arc; while at higher eigenfrequencies of 125.09 Hz, 146.41 Hz
and 229.36 Hz, bending and torsion are involved. All of the elas-
tic beam’s motion patterns will cause the deformation of the PZT
patch to generate electrical output. For more straightforward expla-
(6) nation, some snapshots of the forth and back movement captured
using a high-speed camera are shown in Fig. 2(c). In wind flow,
the beam moves away from the equilibrium position and flutters
upwards. After reaching the maximum amplitude, the beam flutters
downwards to the other furthest position and then upwards again.
176 J. Zhao et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 236 (2015) 173–179
Fig. 3. Open-circuit output voltages of four modes at various wind speeds.
The cycle repeats until the wind speed increases to the threshold
of chaotic oscillation and torsion occurs.
To characterize the electrical outputs of the harvester under
wind excitations with various speeds and directions, the open-
circuit voltage signals at various wind speeds for all modes are
recorded and plotted in Fig. 3. In mode I (Fig. 3(a)) and mode II
(Fig. 3(b)), fluttering is the main oscillating pattern of the beam at
low wind speeds, and both the oscillating amplitude and frequency
increase with the wind speed increasing. When the wind speed
reaches the threshold of chaotic motion, the oscillation loses its
regularity and becomes aperiodic, but the oscillating amplitude and
frequency still increase with the increasing wind speed. In mode I,
the oscillating frequency (14.53 Hz) is close to the eigenfrequency
of the harvester (15.28 Hz) at 7 m/s, and the operating state of the
harvester approaches resonance. While in mode II, the harvester
needs a higher wind speed to achieve this state. The reason is that,
the PZT patch causes a larger equivalent stiffness of the harvester
in mode II than that in mode I. In mode III (Fig. 3(c)), the oscilla-
tion is mainly caused by vortex shedding. According to Eq. (4), the
frequency of the vortex shedding is positively correlated to wind
speed. At 7 m/s, the frequency of the vortex shedding (14.23 Hz)
is consistent with the eigenfrequency of the harvester (15.28 Hz),
thus, a resonance occurs. At a higher wind speed, the turbulence
turns to be a dominant contributor and then the chaotic oscillation
occurs, along with the oscillating amplitude and frequency increas-
ing. In mode IV (Fig. 3(d)), the arcuated part of the beam serves
as a bluff and the flow field will be disturbed when wind blows
through it. In addition, vortex streets are produced in the wake as
well. When the frequency of the vortex shedding is close to the
eigenfrequency of the harvester (15.28 Hz), it will be locked within
a certain wind speed range [32]. In the lock-in region, with the
wind speed ranging from 7 m/s to 11 m/s, the harvester exhibits a
large-amplitude oscillating motion. When the wind speed is large
enough to make the harvester work outside the lock-in region, the
oscillation develops into chaos. The harvester showed different fre-
quency behaviors in different modes, this is because the motion
patterns of the harvester are different due to the inherent geomet-
rical asymmetry and different excitation wind speeds in different
modes. In modes I, II and III, the dominant vibrating frequency is
mainly determined by the interaction between the wind and the
elastic beam. It does not match with any of the harvester’s eigen-
frequencies. While in mode IV, the vibrating frequency is near the
harvester’s eigenfrequency due to the lock-in effect of vortex shed-
ding.
In Fig. 3, although the generated voltages fluctuate with time,
their average amplitudes over a long period of time (such as 3 min)
remain stable. Therefore, the average values of the peak to peak
open-circuit voltages over a period of 3 min versus wind speed were
measured when the harvester operated with a = 46 mm, b = 20 mm,
and the results are shown in Fig. 4(a). The results prove that the
wind with a wide speed range of 2–17 m/s can be converted to
electricity by the harvester in all four modes. However, we also
notice that the output voltages in different modes exhibit various
characteristics. In modes I and II, they show similarly increasing
trend with the growing wind speed and get to 25.0 V and 34.2 V
at 17 m/s, respectively. While in mode III, a small hump appears
in the voltage curve at 7 m/s, this is because the frequency of the
vortex shedding on the beam’s surface matches the eigenfrequency
of the harvester. Subsequently, with increasing wind speed vortex
shedding develops into turbulence, which becomes the major con-
tributor on the increasing output voltage. The maximum voltage of
14.2 V is reached at 17 m/s. The voltage curve in mode IV exhibits a
distinct trend and presents a large hump with the value of 26 V at
11 m/s. Then, the beam bends in the middle and flutters only on one
 J. Zhao et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 236 (2015) 173–179 177

Fig. 4. Wind speed responses of harvesters with different configurations in the wind speed range of 2–17˛ m/s.

Fig. 5. Peak to peak output voltages and powers across the external load resistances of the referenced harvester (a:b = 2.3:1) for modes I (a), II (b), III (c) and IV (d).
178 J. Zhao et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 236 (2015) 173–179
Fig. 6. Demonstration of the harvester as a sustainable power source. (a) the maximum powers for modes I, II, III and IV and (b) a photograph of wind energy harvesting.
Eighteen commercial LED bulbs were lit up simultaneously.
side under wind pressure, leading to the decreasing output voltage
with the increasing wind speed.
Furthermore, in order to illustrate the influence of the elastic
beam’s radian on the output voltage, a series of subsequent exper-
iments were carried out by varying the ratio of ‘a’ to ‘b’. Thus,
we fabricated other three prototypes with the value of ‘b’ fixed
as 20 mm, while the values of ‘a’ were 20 mm, 32 mm and 60 mm,
respectively corresponding to the ratios of 1.0, 1.6 and 3.0. With
these configurations, the output voltages were measured and the
results are shown in Fig. 4(b)–(d). The results show that the har-
vester with all of the configurations can convert wind energy into
electrical output. By comparison, we find that in modes I and II, the
maximum voltages produced by the prototypes with the ratios of
2.3 and 3.0 are above 20 V, while those produced by the other two
prototypes are below 20 V. In mode III, the small humps appear at
5 m/s, 7 m/s, 8 m/s and 9 m/s for the prototypes with the ratios of
3.0, 2.3, 1.6 and 1.0, respectively. The explanation is that the stiff-
ness and the eigenfrequency of the harvester decrease with the
increasing beam radian, thus, the resonance state will be achieved
at a lower wind speed. In mode IV, the maximum voltages produced
by the two prototypes with the ratios of 1.0 and 1.6 are above 30 V
with the wind speed ranging from 9 m/s to 14 m/s and from 10 m/s
to 13 m/s, respectively, while those of the other two prototypes
can’t achieve 30 V. The reason is that for the prototypes with larger
ratios, according to Eq. (6), the lock-in effect of vortex shedding will
be broken at a lower wind speed by the turbulence, attributing to
narrow wind speed ranges with high output voltages. Furthermore,
because of the deformations of the arcuated parts, the resonance
state can’t be stably maintained and part of wind energy is dissi-
pated in the deformations of the larger arcs, leading to lower output
voltages. Therefore, the harvester with a larger ratio is more suit-
able for modes I and II, and the harvester with a smaller ratio will
work effectively in mode IV.
In order to further evaluate the wind energy harvesting capabil-
ity, we tested the referenced prototype (a:b = 2.3:1) and measured
the average values of the output peak to peak voltage (Vpp ) over
a period of 3 min against external load resistances at a specific
√ And the output powers were calculated byPout =
wind speed.
Vpp / 2 2 ˆ2/Rload . In Figs. 5 and 6(a), Vpp in all four modes
increase monotonically with increasing load resistances, and the
output powers reach the optimized values of 0.84 mW, 1.73 mW,
0.33 mW and 0.27 mW in modes I, II, III and IV, respectively, with the
matched load resistances of approximately 9 kat the wind speed
of 17 m/s, 15 kat 17 m/s, 15 kat 17 m/s and 50 kat 11 m/s.
To prove the capability of the harvester as a sustainable power
source, a practical application was demonstrated. As indicated in
Fig. 6(b), three harvesters were installed on a prism which can
be regarded as three leaves on a tree. In our test, one harvester
with two serial-connected PZT patches was utilized and 18 serial-
connected commercial LED bulbs were lit up simultaneously at the
wind speed of 10.5 m/s. This demonstration confirmed the practi-
cal value of the harvester and the scavenged energy from wind can
also be utilized to power the wireless sensors for monitoring air
temperature, barometric pressure or wind speed.
5. Conclusions
In conclusion, an innovatively designed arc-shaped piezoelec-
tric generator for harvesting wind energy with wide speed range
and multiple directions was developed for the first time. An analyt-
ical model consisting of the electromechanical coupling effect, as
well as the interaction between the wind flow and the elastic beam
was established. To further study the relationship between the
harvester’s performance and the wind flow, we investigated four
distinct operating modes, and the behavior of the harvester in each
mode was illustrated and analyzed. As the results showed, a maxi-
mum output power of 1.73 mW across a matched load of 15 kwas
obtained at the wind speed of 17 m/s in mode II. In addition, an
application was demonstrated to confirm the practical value of
this harvester. With major advantages such as compactness, low
cost and simple construction process, we are confident that this
harvester will find applications in environmental monitoring and
other fields of renewable wind energy utilization.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (Nos. 61174017, 51475060) and Chongqing Science
and Technology Commission (cstc2013kjrc-qnrc40006).
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Intell. Mater. Syst. Struct. 25 (2014) 246–256. Yumei Wen received the BE degree in electronics from
[29] J. Yang, J. Chen, Y. Yang, H. Zhang, W. Yang, P. Bai, Y. Su, Z. Wang, Broadband Beijing Aeronautic and Astronautic University, Beijing,
vibrational energy harvesting based on a triboelectric nanogenerator, Adv. China, in 1984, the ME degree from the China Academy of
Energy Mater. 4 (2014) 1301322. Launch Vehicle Technology in 1987, and the PhD degree
[30] L. Dhakar, H. Liu, F.E.H. Tay, C. Lee, A new energy harvester design for high from Chongqing University in 1997. She has been with
power output at low frequencies, Sens. Actuators A: Phys. 199 (2013) Chongqing University, since 1987, where she has been a
344–352. professor since 1998. Her research interests include sens-
[31] D.T. Akcabay, Y.L. Young, Hydroelastic response and energy harvesting ing technology, signal processing, and instrumentation.
potential of flexible piezoelectric beams in viscous flow, Phys. Fluids 24 (5)
(2012) 054106.
[32] X. Gao, W.H. Shih, W.Y. Shih, Flow energy harvesting using piezoelectric Ping Li received the BE degree in electrical engineering
cantilevers with cylindrical extension, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron. 60 (3) (2013) and the ME and PhD degrees in instrumentation science
1116–1118. and technology from Chongqing University in 1984, 1995,
and 2003, respectively. He is currently a professor with
the College of Optoelectronic Engineering, Chongqing Uni-
Biographies versity. His current research interests include sensors
and actuators, measurement and instrumentation, smart
structures, and MEMS, and he has taken part in about 20
research projects in these fields.
Jiangxin Zhao received the BE degree in school of physics
and electronics from Henan University in 2013. He is cur-
rently a master student in Chongqing University. His main
research fields are self-powered sensors and networks.