Applied Energy 240 (2019) 26–34

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

A tunable frequency up-conversion wideband piezoelectric vibration energy T

harvester for low-frequency variable environment using a novel impact- and
rope-driven hybrid mechanism
⁎
Jinhui Zhang, Lifeng Qin
Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China

H I GH L IG H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Abridnovel impact- and rope-driven hy-

mechanism has been investigated.
• Central working frequency of the de-
vice can be easily tuned by the rope-
margin.
• Bandwidth of the device is 4.2 times
wider than the conventional harvester.

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper presents a tunable frequency up-conversion wideband piezoelectric vibration energy harvester using
Impact- and rope-driven hybrid mechanism a novel impact- and rope-driven hybrid mechanism, in which a high frequency generating beam is triggered by
Frequency up-conversion the rope or impacted directly by the low frequency driving beam. A mass-spring-damper equivalent model was
Wideband energy harvester built to understand the operation mechanism of the proposed piezoelectric vibration energy harvester. Based on
Low-frequency variable environment
the theoretical model, the effect of the rope-margin on the performance of the proposed piezoelectric vibration
energy harvester was numerically analyzed. Both the simulation and experimental results showed that the
central working frequency of the proposed piezoelectric vibration energy harvester can be changed easily from
74.75 Hz to 106 Hz by adjusting the rope-margin from 0.5 mm to 2 mm without any structure re-fabrication.
Moreover, a bandwidth 4.2 times wider than the conventional frequency up-conversion piezoelectric vibration
energy harvester based on impact-driven mechanism can be achieved. The tunable performance of the proposed
piezoelectric vibration energy harvester system make it promising for vibration energy harvesting in wideband
environments with low frequency.

1. Introduction
Energy harvesting technology, which transforms ambient vibration
energy from industrial machines, vehicles, human activity, and en-
vironment sources into electrical power, has increasingly been
attracting research interest in the recent years for its applicability to
powering low-power electronic devices of wireless sensor network
systems (WSNs) [1,2]. The piezoelectric [2–29], electromagnetic
[30–40] and electrostatic [41–49] energy harvesters are the commonly
used technologies to realize ambient vibration energy conversion. The

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: liq@xmu.edu.cn (L. Qin).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.01.261
Received 19 October 2018; Received in revised form 28 January 2019; Accepted 31 January 2019
Available online 13 February 2019
0306-2619/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Zhang and L. Qin
piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH) has been extensively
investigated due to its very simple structure [6]. Its most widely used
structure is based on the cantilever structure where one end is clamped,
a proof mass is attached at the free end, and piezoelectric materials are
deposited on a substrate layer for mechanical to electrical energy
conversion. The PVEH can produce significant response amplitude only
when the main ambient vibration frequency exactly matches the re-
sonant frequency of the harvester [50]. If the ambient vibration fre-
quency deviates from the resonant frequency by about 2%, the output
voltage drops to about 50% of the resonance peak. If the deviation is by
5%, then there is almost no output [51]. Therefore, it is impractical for
the cantilever type PVEH to extract energy from variable environments
due to its narrow bandwidth. However, most environmental vibrations
occur at a low frequency range, normally below 100 Hz [20]. Thus,
PVEH should be designed for harvesting energy from wideband en-
vironments with low frequency.
To achieve this, different methods have been proposed by re-
searchers. The most common is the frequency up-conversion (FUC)
technique, which can convert low frequency vibrations to high fre-
quency oscillations. The earliest application of FUC to an energy har-
vester was in 1996 by Umeda et al. [52,53], who proposed a new
mechanism in which the mechanical energy of the impact of a steel ball
on a piezoelectric membrane was converted to electrical energy. In
other reports regarding the FUC technique, the representative structure
is formed using a low frequency driving beam with or without piezo-
electric material and a high frequency generating beam with piezo-
electric material; these are arranged face to face with a predetermined
gap between them. Based on the method by which vibration energy is
transferred from the low frequency driving beam to the high frequency
generating beam, these FUC technologies can be classified into the
contact and non-contact types. In the case of the contact FUC technique,
research has most commonly been conducted on the impact-driven
piezoelectric vibration energy harvester that uses contact-mechanical
force [10,13,14,19–22,54] to convert vibration energy to electrical
energy. Gu et al. realized wideband energy harvesting and high output
power with the direct impact of a double cantilever [20]. To avoid
damage to the device due to the inelastic impact of the hard beams,
particularly in the case of beams made from micro-fabrication materials
such as brittle silicon, Vijayan et al. proposed a modified design in
which a spring element is attached to one end of a beam. They also
demonstrated that bandwidth and output power are affected by contact
stiffness, damping, and gap between the beams [22]. Park et al. de-
veloped an impact system composed of one low frequency driving beam
and two high frequency generating beams to obtain high output power
density and consequently achieve wideband energy harvesting based on
mechanical impact [19]. In harvesters involving the non-contact FUC
technique, non-contact forces such as an extra magnetic force
[7,9,38,55,56] and mechanical force [11,57] is used to convert vibra-
tion energy to electrical energy. Najafi et al. presented a micro power
generator that comprises a copper spring suspension and tungsten mass
as the low frequency driving beam, and an actuation magnet and spiral
PZT scavenger as the high frequency generating beam. By introducing a
magnetic force, piezoelectric and electromagnetic hybrid wideband
energy harvesting could be realized in this technique [38]. Further, for
application in variable environments, the energy harvester is required
to have a wider bandwidth. Thus, the methods of adding high frequency
beams on two sides of a low frequency driving beam to act as stoppers
[21], designing the nonlinear beam [10,58], and combining this system
with a multimodal mechanism [7,10,11,17,18] have been proposed to
effectively improve wideband frequency performance; and more studies
of the driving beam design can be found in [3,59]. Further, FUC tech-
niques have also been applied to electromagnetic [32,38–40] and
electrostatic energy harvesting systems [41,44,48,49].
According to the existing reports, such frequency up-conversion
approaches have several advantages: (1) they can achieve wideband
energy harvesting effectively; (2) they offer a PVEH MEMS (Micro-
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Applied Energy 240 (2019) 26–34
Electro-Mechanical System) solution for low frequency vibration energy
harvesting; (3) they realize better electromechanical coupling and ef-
ficiency due to the mechanical damping ratio being reduced greatly
during coupled vibration. However, ambient vibrations are usually
variable, and sometimes it may be impossible to achieve a harvester
with enough bandwidth to enable practical application. A possible so-
lution to this problem is to actively change the characteristics of the
harvester to fit the variations in vibration frequency. In other words, an
energy harvester’s central working frequency should be adjustable.
Many studies have shown that the central working frequency of a FUC
PVEH is affected by the excitation acceleration, damping, gap, stiffness,
geometry, and material of beams [14,21]. However, once FUC PVEHs
are fabricated, these parameters can barely be changed unless the de-
vices are re-fabricated, which is difficult and inconvenient, particularly
for the MEMS devices. Thus, a method to conveniently adjust the cen-
tral working frequency of a wideband energy harvester without re-
fabrication or damage to the original structure is desirable.
In this paper, a tunable FUC wideband PVEH for applications in low
frequency variable environment is proposed, which is developed by
adopting a novel impact- and rope-driven hybrid mechanism.
Compared to conventional FUC devices, which are based only on im-
pact-driven mechanism, the proposed device can achieve an adjustable
central working frequency easily and effectively by changing ropes,
without influencing the original device design. This tunable device af-
fords a promising means of working effectively in a variable and
complicated environment. The rest of the paper is organized as follows:
Section 2 describes the theory of the proposed tunable FUC wideband
PVEH, including the working principle, modeling, and simulation;
Section 3 gives an experimental demonstration of the device’s ad-
justable performance and discusses them in detail; Section 4 presents
the conclusions drawn from the analyses and their results.
2. Theory
2.1. Working principle of the proposed PVEH
The proposed tunable FUC wideband PVEH comprises a high fre-
quency generating beam (HFGB) attached with a piezoelectric layer and
a low frequency driving beam (LFDB), as shown in Fig. 1(a). The two
beams are placed face to face with a fixed space L0 between them. They
are connected mechanically at the tip using a rope with a certain
margin. The operation mechanism of the device is approximately di-
vided into four phases, as depicted in Fig. 1(b). When the displacement
amplitude of the LFDB is excited to exceed the gap d1, the LFDB impacts
the HFGB by proof mass and the beams vibrate together for a short
time; this is phase 1 (impact-driven) of the operation mechanism. After
the HFGB has obtained mechanical energy from the LFDB, the two
beams start to separate and the HFGB vibrates with exponentially at-
tenuating amplitude at its resonant frequency, thus converting the vi-
bration energy into electrical energy by the piezoelectric effect. This is
phase 2. During this phase, the LFDB is also excited by the ambient
vibration at ambient frequency until its amplitude exceeds the rope-
margin d2, defined as length of rope, L, minus L0. In phase 3 (rope-
driven), the HFGB is pulled by the LFDB through the rope and the
beams vibrate together for a short period in the direction opposite to
that in phase 1. In phase 4, the two beams separate again. The vibration
states of the beams are similar in phase 4 to those in the phase 2. The
HFGB, after obtaining vibrational energy from the LFDB, continues to
vibrate with exponentially attenuating amplitude at its higher resonant
frequency. The LFDB continues to be excited by the ambient vibration
until it impacts the HFGB in the next cycle. Here, the LFDB transfers
vibration energy to the HFGB twice during one cycle, including those
during the impact-driven and rope-driven phases. This operation me-
chanism is treated as a FUC mechanism.
There are several advantages for this novel tunable FUC wideband
PVEH. First, it is different from the conventional FUC wideband PVEH,
J. Zhang and L. Qin Applied Energy 240 (2019) 26–34

Fig. 1. Architecture (a) and operation mechanism (b) of the proposed PVEH system.

which is only based on impact-driven mechanism. In this proposed respectively. During phases 2 and 4, the LFDB is excited by the base
PVEH, the central working frequency can be easily adjusted by chan- excitation y(t) at the ambient frequency and the HFGB vibrates with
ging the rope to realize tunable wideband energy harvesting without exponentially attenuating amplitude at its resonant frequency. It needs
the need for device re-fabrication in low frequency variable environ- to be pointed out that Vn and Vn′ (n = 1, 2, 3, 4) represents the velo-
ment. Second, compared to conventional FUC PVEHs, a wider band- cities of the LFDB and HFGB in the different phases, and describes their
width can be achieved due to the added rope-driven mechanism. Third, different motion states.
in the case of low frequency FUC PVEHs, the large displacements from According to the equivalent schematic models and operating me-
sufficient vibration excitation make the LFDB unreliable, particular chanism of the proposed FUC PVEH system, shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b),
when brittle materials are used. While the HFGB can be treated as the the motion equations of the LFDB (z1) and HFGB (z2) during the four
stopper to limit the displacement of LFDB in up or down direction. In phases can be written as:
the conventional FUC PVEH, one stopper only provides the protection
in one direction. However, the device proposed in this paper with one ⎧ m1 z¨1 + (c1 + c2) z1̇ (z1 − z2 ⩾ d1), phase1
stopper can provide double protection in the up and down directions ⎪
⎪ + (k1 + k2) z1 = −m1 y¨
due to the rope can limit the displacement of LFDB in another direction. ⎪ m1 z¨1 + c1 z1̇ + k1 z1 = −m1 y¨ (−d2 < z1 − z2 < d1), phases 2and 4
Thus, the device’s reliability is enhanced further.
⎨ m1 z¨1 + c1 z1̇ + k1 z1 (z1 − z2 ⩽ - d2), phase3
⎪
⎪ − k 0 (−(z1 − z2) − d2)
2.2. Modeling the proposed PVEH ⎪
⎩ = −m1 y¨
Fig. 2 illustrates a mass-spring-damper equivalent model of the (1)
proposed tunable FUC PVEH with a rope connecting the LFDB and
HFGB. As shown in Fig. 2(a), the equivalent schematic model comprises ⎧ z2 = z1 − d1 (z1 − z2 ⩾ d1), phase1
of an excitation vibrator as the LFDB, with a damping coefficient c1, ⎪ m z¨ + c z ̇ + k z = −m y¨ ( - d2 < z1 − z2 < d1),
⎪ 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
stiffness k1, and proof mass m1. Another vibrator functions as the HFGB, ⎪ phases 2and 4
acting as a generator. It is placed at a distance of d1 above the LFDB,
⎨ m2 z¨2 + c2 z2̇ + k2 z2 (z1 − z2 ⩽ - d2), phase3
and has a damping coefficient c2, stiffness k2 (higher than k1), and proof ⎪
mass m2. A rope with stiffness k0 is used to connect the LFDB and HFGB, ⎪ + k 0 (−(z1 − z2) − d2)
⎪
with a margin of d2. The equivalent schematic model for the different = −m2 y¨ (2)
⎩
phases is depicted in Fig. 2(b), which is corresponding to Fig. 1(b).
When the proposed PVEH system is excited by the base excitation y(t), Here, impact between the two beams is assumed to be an inelastic
during phases 1 and 3, the LFDB impacts the HFGB and pulls the HFGB collision. Thus, the beams vibrate together for part of the cycle during
using the rope if the relative displacement (defined as the LFDB relative phase 1. The rope is assumed to be a spring without damping because
displacement z1(t) minus the HFGB relative displacement z2(t)) exceeds the damping coefficient of the rope is far less than c1 and c2. For further
the impact-gap d1 and rope-margin d2 in opposite directions, analysis of the effects of rope-margin d2, Eqs. (1) and (2) can be

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J. Zhang and L. Qin Applied Energy 240 (2019) 26–34

Fig. 2. Schematic model (a) and operation mechanism (b) of the proposed PVEH system.

rearranged as follows: displacements of the LFDB and HFGB versus the excitation frequency ω
can be numerically derived, based on Eqs. (3) and (4).
z¨1 + 2ξ1 ω1 z1̇ + ω12 z1
m2
⎧ − 2 m1 ξ2 ω2 z1̇ (z1 − z2 ⩾ d1), phase 1 2.3. Simulation of proposed PVEH
⎪
⎪ − m2 ω22 z1 + m2 2
ω d
m1 m1 2 1
⎪ The frequency response of the proposed PVEH has been numerically
⎪ + asinωt analyzed using Eqs. (3) and (4). Here, we mainly focus on the effect of
⎪
= asinωt (−d2 < z1 − z2 < d1), the given rope-margin d2 on the central working frequency, and how to
⎨
⎪ phase 2 and 4 achieve tunable wideband energy harvesting under different impact-
⎪ gaps d1 through simulation. In the simulation, a cotton rope is used and
⎪ + k 0 (−(z1 − z2) − d2) (z1 − z2 ⩽ - d2), phase 3
⎪ m1 its stiffness is set as 5000 N/m. The parameters of the two beams are
⎪ + asinωt (3) fixed at certain values, as shown in Table 1. Under different impact-
⎩
gaps d1, the variation in rope-margin d2 from 0.5 mm to 2 mm is in-
⎧ z2 = z1 − d1 (z1 − z2 ⩾ d1), phase 1 vestigated systematically. All the parameters set in the simulation are
⎪ z¨ + 2ξ ω z ̇ + ω 2 z only used as a case study to demonstrate the tunable performance of the
⎪ 2 2 2 2 2 2
proposed PVEH.
⎪ asinωt ( - d2 < z1 − z2 < d1),
⎪ ⎧ Fig. 3 shows the frequency response of the HFGB RMS (Root mean
⎪
⎨ ⎪ phase 2 and 4
⎪ = Table 1
⎪ ⎨ − k 0 (−(z1 − z2) − d2) (z1 − z2 ⩽ - d2),
⎪ ⎪ m2 Simulation parameters of LFDB and HFGB.
⎪ ⎪ + asinωt phase 3
⎩ ⎩ (4) Parameters LFDB HFGB

In Eqs. (3) and (4), y(t) = Ysin(ωt) is the harmonic base excitation, Length (mm) 40.0 14.0
Y is the amplitude of the base excitation, z1(t) and z2(t) are the dis- Width (mm) 15.0 7.0
placements of the LFDB and HFGB relative to the base, ω1 and ξ1 are the Thickness (mm) 0.35 0.35
Damping ratio 0.005 0.02
LFDB frequency and damping characteristics, ω2 and ξ2 are the HFGB
Proof mass (g) 3.0 /
frequency and damping characteristics, which are defined as ω12 = k1/ Frequency (Hz) 52.0 1021.0
m1, ω22 = k2/m2, 2ξ1ω1 = c1/m1, and 2ξ2ω2 = c2/m2. Thus, the

29
J. Zhang and L. Qin
Fig. 3. Frequency response of HFGB RMS displacement for various rope-mar-
gins under an impact-gap of 0.5 mm.
square) displacement of the proposed PVEH system for various values
of rope-margin d2 (0.5–2.0 mm) under a fixed value of base acceleration
of 0.6g (g = 9.8 m/s2) and impact-gap d1 of 0.5 mm. From the simula-
tion results, it is clearly observed that the proposed PVEH central
working frequency can be adjusted by the rope-margin, and a wider
bandwidth can be achieved. For example, in Fig. 3, at an impact-gap of
0.5 mm, the −3 dB bandwidth is measured to be 2.5 Hz for the con-
ventional FUC PVEH, and thus, its central working frequency is
74.75 Hz (73.5–76 Hz), which is a fixed value if the structural design is
not altered. However, the proposed PVEH central working frequency
can reach 86.25 Hz (81–91.5 Hz), 89.75 Hz (84.5–95 Hz), 97 Hz
(91.5–102 Hz), and 106 Hz (100.5–111 Hz) by adjusting the rope-
margin from 2 mm to 0.5 mm without any alterations to the original
device, and a bandwidth of 10.5 Hz can be attained, which is 4.2 times
Fig. 4. Frequency response of HFGB RMS displacement for various rope-margins under impact-gaps of 0.75 mm (a) and 1.0 mm (b).
30
Applied Energy 240 (2019) 26–34
the bandwidth for the conventional FUC PVEH. Moreover, the wide-
band performance of the proposed PVEH with the rope differs from that
of the conventional FUC PVEH. Compared with the conventional PVEH,
the proposed PVEH has two different wideband stages. As shown in
Fig. 3, the symbols of A, B and C are used to represent the transition
frequency points for different stages. For example, under an impact-gap
of 0.5 mm and a rope-margin of 2 mm, the first stage is from points A to
B and represents energy harvesting that is only based on the impact-
driven mechanism, where the HFGB only obtains mechanical energy
once from the LFDB during one vibration cycle (as seen in Fig. 8(a)); the
second stage is from points B to C and represents energy harvesting
based on the impact- and rope-driven hybrid mechanism, where the
HFGB can be transformed to mechanical energy twice from the LFDB
during one vibration cycle (as seen in Fig. 8(b)). The starting fre-
quencies (at point B) in the second stage are shifted to the left when the
rope-margin changes from 2 mm to 0.5 mm , and will overlap the
starting frequencies (at point A) in the first stage when the rope-margin
is equal to the impact-gap (0.5 mm).
For a further demonstration of the proposed PVEH tunable perfor-
mance, the frequency response of the HFGB RMS displacement for
various rope-margins under different impact-gaps are also investigated,
and the simulation results are shown in Fig. 4. Compared with Fig. 3,
similar results can also be obtained from Fig. 4(a) and (b) under impact-
gaps of 0.75 mm and 1.0 mm, respectively. At a fixed impact-gap, the
central working frequency can be changed by adjusting the rope-margin
without any structural re-fabrication, a wider bandwidth can also be
obtained. This allows the proposed wideband PVEH system to work
more effectively in a variable and complex low-frequency environment.
3. Experimental
3.1. Measurement of the proposed PVEH
Fig. 5 depicts a particular experimental system of the proposed
J. Zhang and L. Qin Applied Energy 240 (2019) 26–34

a
Proposed tunable PVEH HFGB

LFDB

Resistance box Multimeter

Displacement sensor

z
x Signal generator
o
y

Laser controller
Micro stage Oscilloscope
DAQ

Vibration shaker Charge

Power amplifier
amplifier

Fig. 5. Device fabrication (a) and detailed experimental setup (b) of proposed PVEH system.

Table 2 proposed PVEH system experimentally, a precise tunable system is used

Experimental parameters of LFDB and HFGB. to finely adjust the impact-gaps and rope-margins between the LFDB
Parameters LFDB HFGB
and HFGB. The precise tunable system contains two micro stages with a
precision of 0.01 mm. The HFGB is fixed on one micro stage to adjust
Length (mm) 39.6 13.5 the impact-gaps and rope-margins in the z direction. The rope-margins
Width (mm) 15.0 7.5 can also be adjusted by the rope length at a certain impact-gap. The
Thickness (mm) 0.38 0.39
Damping ratio 0.004 0.02
LFDB is fixed on another micro stage below the HFGB to control the
Proof mass (g) 3.0 / relative position of the LFDB and HFGB in the x and y directions. The
Frequency (Hz) 52.1 1333.3 entire tunable system and the accelerometer are installed on a vibration
PZT / 5.5 × 6.8 × 0.15 mm shaker. A signal generator through a power amplifier is used to control
the vibration frequency and amplitude of the shaker. The HFGB is
connected with a resistance box, which is similar to the resistance load,
tunable FUC PVEH system, which is composed of one HFGB and one
and the output RMS power of the load is recorded by the multimeter.
LFDB. As seen in Fig. 5(a), the HFGB consists of a brass supporting base
The real-time displacement of the HFGB is measured by laser dis-
(13.5 mm × 7.5 mm × 0.39 mm) coated with a PZT layer
placement sensor including a laser generator, laser controller, and
(5.5 mm × 6.8 mm × 0.15 mm) with a resonant frequency of
power source and recorded by data acquisition (DAQ); meanwhile, the
1333.3 Hz. The LFDB also consists of a brass supporting base
acceleration amplified by the charge amplifier is monitored by an os-
(39.6 mm × 15 mm × 0.38 mm) with an inertial mass of 3 g, but
cilloscope and also recorded by DAQ.
without a piezoelectric layer; its resonant frequency is 52.1 Hz. A da-
cron rope is used to connect the HFGB with the LFDB with a stiffness of
8615 N/m. The detailed parameters of the proposed system are shown 3.2. Results and discussions
in Table 2. When the displacement of the LFDB is larger than the rope-
margin or impact-gap, the HFGB is excited by the rope or impacted The adjustable performance of the proposed PVEH was experi-
directly by the LFDB into a high-frequency self-oscillation, and the mentally verified. Because the output RMS power is proportional to
electricity is generated once the PZT layer on the HFGB deforms. The (RMS displacement)2, the output RMS power of the HFGB can be used
RMS power of a fixed load resistance of 200 kΩ is measured with the as another evaluation parameter for the performance of the proposed
variation in the rope-margin and impact-gap. PVEH during the experiment. The output RMS power of the HFGB
As shown in Fig. 5(b), to study the tunable performance of the against excitation frequencies from 40 Hz to 100 Hz with different rope-
margins at the impact-gap of 0.5 mm and acceleration of 0.6g

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J. Zhang and L. Qin Applied Energy 240 (2019) 26–34

Fig. 6. Experimental (a) and simulation (b) frequency response of the proposed PVEH system at an impact-gap of 0.5 mm.

Fig. 7. Experimental frequency response of the proposed PVEH system at the impact-gaps of 0.75 mm (a) and 1.0 mm (b).

Fig. 8. Typical real-time output voltages, relative displacements and acceleration of the conventional FUC PVEH (d1 = 0.75 mm) (a) and the proposed PVEH
(d1 = 0.75 mm, d2 = 1 mm) (b).

32
J. Zhang and L. Qin
(g = 9.8 m/s2) is shown in Fig. 6(a). Corresponding to the experimental
results, the simulation RMS displacement of the HFGB against the ex-
citation frequencies is shown in Fig. 6(b). From Fig. 6(a), at the −3 dB
bandwidth, the excitation frequency of the conventional FUC PVEH is
measured as 3 Hz at an impact-gap d1 of 0.5 mm; therefore, the central
working frequency is 69.5 Hz (68–71 Hz). Compared with the conven-
tional PVEH, the proposed PVEH shows significant adjustable perfor-
mance by only changing the rope-margin without any structural al-
terations. For example, when the rope-margin d2 is in the range
0.7–2.1 mm, the central working frequency can be adjusted from
69.5 Hz (68–71 Hz) to 70.75 Hz (67–74.5 Hz), 81 Hz (76–86 Hz) or
89 Hz (84–94 Hz), and the proposed PVEH can achieve a wider band-
width of 10 Hz, which agree with the simulation results in Fig. 6(b),
where the central working frequency can be adjusted from 74.75 Hz
(73.5–76 Hz) to 88.75 Hz (83.5–94 Hz), 97 Hz (92–102 Hz), or
105.25 Hz (100.5–110 Hz) and a wider bandwidth can be achieved of
10.5 Hz. The differences of the simulation and experimental results in
the central working frequency under different rope-margins are mainly
attributed to two reasons: (1) During phase 1 shown in Figs. 1(b) or
2(b), treating the coupled vibration as inelastic in the simulation, in
fact, the coupled vibration is not strictly inelastic impact and may in-
clude multiple collisions. (2) The damping of the rope is neglected
during the simulation, which mainly affects the energy transformation
in phase 3, as shown in Fig. 1(b) or Fig. 2(b).
To verify the adjustable performance of the proposed PVEH ade-
quately, the frequency response of the output RMS power of the HFGB
at different impact-gaps are also investigated experimentally, as shown
in Fig. 7. From Fig. 7(a) and (b), the proposed PVEH shows the ad-
justable performance of the central working frequency under different
rope-margins and can broaden the bandwidth more than the conven-
tional FUC PVEH, which agrees with the experimental results shown in
Fig. 6(a). For a deeper understanding the performance of the proposed
PVEH, Fig. 8(a) and (b) shows the recorded typical real-time output
voltages, relative displacements, and acceleration of the conventional
FUC PVEH (d1 = 0.75 mm) and the proposed PVEH (d1 = 0.75 mm,
d2 = 1 mm), respectively. From the real-time curves, the obvious dif-
ference between the conventional FUC PVEH and proposed PVEH is the
vibration phases. For one vibration cycle, compared with the conven-
tional PVEH, the proposed PVEH has four different vibration phases
corresponding to those shown in Figs. 1(b) or 2(b), including twice the
mechanical energy transformation. For an intuitive understanding, the
output of the proposed energy harvester using the impact- and rope-
driven hybrid mechanism should be double that of the impact-based
energy harvester because there is two times of energy transfer per vi-
bration cycle in the proposed harvester, and only once for the impact-
based energy harvester. While, the system is not purely linear, and the
simulation and experimental results show that the output of the pro-
posed energy harvester does not improve significantly for a certain
frequency. This is due to the nonlinear nature of the proposed system,
where the stiffness of the system is changed twice during the impact- or
rope-driven period; thus, the frequency characteristic of system
changes. As a result, the output does not increase as expected, while the
bandwidth improves; moreover, an adjustable central working fre-
quency can be achieved easily and effectively by the rope, which will be
greatly helpful for device fabrication. Owing to the fabrication error,
the impact-based FUC PVEH may not have the exact performance as
that expected/designed. By adding the rope and controlling the rope
length, the desired performance can be achieved; thus, the impact- and
rope-driven hybrid mechanism can increase the tolerance of fabrica-
tion. Moreover, it should be noted that the HFGB is always treated as
the stopper to limit the displacement of LFDB in the upward or
downward direction for avoiding the large displacements from suffi-
cient vibration excitation making the LFDB unreliable. For the con-
ventional FUC PEVH, two stoppers would be needed to limit the dis-
placement of LFDB in the upward and downward directions. But for the
proposed PEVH, one stopper can provide double protection for the
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Applied Energy 240 (2019) 26–34
LFDB in the upward and downward directions by using the rope. Thus,
the reliability of the device is improved further, especially for the
MEMS PVEH with brittle materials such as silicon. In addition, the
bandwidth can be furtherly increased by adding the number of low
frequency driving beam using ropes, which is helpful for variable en-
vironmental applications [11].
It needs to be pointed out that the main purpose of this paper is to
demonstrate the advantages of the novel PVEH in adjustable central
working frequency and wider bandwidth energy harvesting compared
to the conventional FUC PVEH. And these performances wouldn’t be
influenced by the electromechanical characteristic. Thus, for model
simplification, only mechanical model is presented to study the tunable
performance of the proposed PVEH. While it is better to establish the
electromechanical model of the proposed device for design in practical
applications. This would be future work, also the effect of parameters
such as stiffness of rope, HFGB and LFDB will be addressed.
4. Conclusions
In conclusion, a tunable frequency up-conversion wideband piezo-
electric vibration energy harvester was proposed. By adopting a novel
impact- and rope-driven hybrid mechanism, this device offers three
obvious advantages: first, the tunable performance of the central
working frequency can be easily achieved by adjusting the rope-margin
without any device re-fabrication. Second, a wider bandwidth can be
realized compared with that of the conventional frequency up-conver-
sion piezoelectric vibration energy harvester, based on the impact-
driven mechanism. Third, compared with the conventional frequency
up-conversion piezoelectric vibration energy harvester, in which two
stoppers would be needed to limit the displacement of low frequency
driving beam in the upward and downward directions, the proposed
device in this paper with one stopper can provide double protection for
low frequency driving beam in the upward and downward directions by
using the rope. Thus, the reliability of the device is improved further,
especially for the MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) piezo-
electric vibration energy harvester with brittle materials. A mass-
spring-damper equivalent model was built for theoretical analysis of the
proposed piezoelectric vibration energy harvester; simulation results
showed that the device’s central working frequency can be changed by
only adjusting the rope-margin, and a 4.2 times wider bandwidth can
be achieved than the conventional frequency up-conversion piezo-
electric vibration energy harvester. The performances of the proposed
device were proved experimentally, and the experimental results
agreed qualitatively with the simulation results. The results of this re-
search will benefit the future development of tunable wideband energy
harvesters, especially for applications in a variable and complicated
low-frequency environment.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 51775465) and the Natural Science
Foundation of Fujian Province of China (Grant No. 2016J01259).
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