The Width Reduction Effect of a Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Composite Beam on Output Power: An Experimental and Analytical Study

In this paper, a novel cellulose piezoelectric material embedded on a cantilever beam is used to harvest energy from the structure and the effect of reducing the width of the beam is investigated. In addition, in order to obtain the maximum output power, the series and parallel connections of the piezoelectric layers are considered. First, an experimental work is carried out on a fixed-width energy scavenger beam, and the current, voltage and output power are extracted. Then the target beam is divided into two and three equal parts and connected in series and parallel, and the results are analyzed for each case separately. Next, an analytical study of the effect of frequency on the width reduction of the beam is considered. For the first time in the analytical work, the effect of adding a piece of piezoelectric layer that covers a part of the cantilever beam is considered in terms of natural frequency and output power. Finally, the amount of energy harvested from the unit beam is analyzed analytically and the analytical solution output is verified with experimental results. The results show that there is a good agreement between the analytical and experimental data.