Piezoelectric Nanogenerator Based on Electrospun Cellulose Acetate/Nanocellulose Crystal Composite Membranes for Energy Harvesting Application

Nanogenerators, as the typical conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy devices, have great potential in the application of providing sustainable energy sources for powering miniature devices. In this work, cellulose acetate/cellulose nanocrystal(CA/CNC) composite nanofiber membranes were prepared by electrospinning method and then utilized to manufacture a flexible pressure-driven nanogenerator. The addition of CNC not only increased the content of piezoelectric cellulose I crystallization but also strengthened the mechanical deformation of the nanofiber membranes, which could greatly enhance the piezoelectric performance of CA/CNC composite membranes. The CA/CNC composite nanofiber membrane with 20%(mass fraction) of CNC(CA/CNC-20%) showed optimal piezoelectric conversion performance with the output voltage of 1.2 V under the force of 5 N(frequency of 2 Hz). Furthermore, the output voltage of the CA/CNC-20% nanogenerator device exhibited a linear relationship with applied impact force, indicating the great potential in pressure sensors.     

宽体液腔Janus-Helmholtz换能器

本文使用有限元方法对宽体液腔Janus-Helmholtz(JH)换能器进行了仿真分析,得出了壳体宽度拓展增量对JH换能器工作性能的影响规律。使用三维建模的方式,分析了连接部分对换能器性能的影响及宽体壳体的的模态,证明了三维建模的必要性。依据仿真优化结构设计了一款宽体液腔JH换能器并进行了湖上测试。最终测试结果与仿真结果有很好的一致性,相较直筒JH换能器其谐振频率降低300Hz,发射电压响应最高可达144dB。     

Nano-sized local magnetic field induced by circular motion of ions and molecules in a nanotorus under gigahertz rotating electric fields

Recently, we reported molecular dynamics simulations of stable cyclotron motions of ions and water molecules in a carbon nanotorus, induced by different rotating electric fields (EFs). This study is devoted to the calculation and characterisation of the magnetic field (MF) induced by these cyclotron motions. Results show that carbon nanotorus containing ions or water molecules acts as an EF-to-MF transducer. Components of the instantaneous induced MF show large-scale oscillations superimposed by strong fluctuations arising respectively from overall circular motion and random collisions of moving species. Analysis of the space-dependencies of the induced MF components shows that the induced MF is maximum at the centre of the nanotorus. The MF induced by cyclotron motion of ions follows the orders B(Ca²⁺)?>?B(Na⁺)?≈?B(K⁺) at E?=?1.0?V/nm and B(E?=?1.0?V/nm)?>?B(E?=?0.5?V/nm)?>?B(E?=?0.1?V/nm). The time-averaged induced MF of the cyclotron motion of 81 water molecules is almost 10² times stronger than that of ions. The induced MF strength is decreased with increasing distance from nanotorus and decays effectively at about 17.3–18.1 and 15.9–18.2?nm along the z-axis of the nanotorus for ions and water molecules, respectively. The magnitude of the MF induced by cyclotron motions of water molecules and ions, respectively, decreases and increases in the nanotorus with freed carbon atoms.     

Nonlinear energy harvesting from vibratory disc-shaped piezoelectric laminates

Implementing resonators with geometrical nonlinearities in vibrational energy harvesting systems leads to considerable enhancement of their operational bandwidths. This advantage of nonlinear devices in comparison to their linear counterparts is much more obvious especially at small-scale where transition to nonlinear regime of vibration occurs at moderately small amplitudes of the base excitation. In this paper the nonlinear behavior of a disc-shaped piezoelectric laminated harvester considering midplane-stretching effect is investigated. Extended Hamilton's principle is exploited to extract electromechanically coupled governing partial differential equations of the system. The equations are firstly order-reduced and then analytically solved implementing perturbation method of multiple scales. A nonlinear finite element method(FEM) simulation of the system is performed additionally for the purpose of verification which shows agreement with the analytical solution to a large extent. The frequency response of the output power at primary resonance of the harvester is calculated to investigate the effect of nonlinearity on the system performance. Effect of various parameters including mechanical quality factor, external load impedance and base excitation amplitude on the behavior of the system are studied. Findings indicate that in the nonlinear regime both output power and operational bandwidth of the harvester will be enhanced by increasing the mechanical quality factor which can be considered as a significant advantage in comparison to linear harvesters in which these two factors vary in opposite ways as quality factor is changed.     

Finite element reduced order model for noise and vibration reduction of double sandwich panels using shunted piezoelectric patches

This work concerns the control of sound transmission through double laminated panels with viscoelastic core using semi-passive piezoelectric shunt technique. More specifically, the system consists of two laminated walls, each one composed of three layers and called sandwich panel with an air cavity in between. The external sandwich panel has a surface-mounted piezoelectric patches. The piezoelectric elements, connected with resonant shunt circuits, are used for the vibration damping of some specific resonance frequencies of the coupled system. Firstly, a finite element formulation of the fully coupled visco-electro-mechanical-acoustic system is presented. This formulation takes into account the frequency dependence of the viscoelastic material. A modal reduction approach is then proposed to solve the problem at a lower cost. In the proposed technique, the coupled system is solved by projecting the mechanical displacement unknown on a truncated basis composed by the first real short-circuit structural normal modes and the pressure unknown on a truncated basis composed by the first acoustic modes with rigid boundaries conditions. The few initial electrical unknowns are kept in the reduced system. A static correction is also introduced in order to take into account the effect of higher modes. Various results are presented in order to validate and illustrate the efficiency of the proposed finite element reduced order formulation.     

Improving piezoelectric performance of lead-free polymer composites with high aspect ratio BaTiO3 nanowires

Flexible and lead-free piezoelectric nanocomposites were synthesized with BaTiO₃ nanowires (filler) and poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) (matrix), and the piezoelectric performances of the composites were systematically studied by varying the aspect ratio (AR) and volume fraction of the nanowire and poling time. BaTiO₃ nanowires with AR of 18 were synthesized and incorporated into PVDF to improve the piezoelectric performance of the composites. It was found that high AR significantly increased the dielectric constant up to 64, which is over 800% improvement compared to those from the composites containing spheroid shape BaTiO₃ nanoparticles. In addition, the dielectric constant and piezoelectric coefficient were also enhanced by increasing the concentration of BaTiO₃ nanowires. The piezoelectric coefficient with 50-vol% BaTiO₃ nanowires embedded in PVDF displayed 61 pC/N, which is much higher than nanocomposites with spheroid shape BaTiO₃ nanoparticles as well as comparable to, if not better, other nanoparticle-filled polymer composites. Our results suggest that it is possible to fabricate nanocomposites with proper mechanical and piezoelectric properties by utilizing proper AR fillers.     

Recognition of alkyl ketone molecules based on thickness-shear-mode acoustic sensors with calixarene derivatives

The frequency response characteristics for twenty-two organic vapours by piezoelectric thickness-shear-mode (TSM) acoustic wave sensors coated with four supramolecule compounds—calixarenes have been investigated. Among them, 2,8,14,20-tetraethyl-4,6,10,12,16,18,22,24-octahydroxylcalix[4]arene (I) was the most efficient actively adsorptive material for host-guest recognizing alkyl ketone molecules such as 2-butanone and acetone. The supramolecule recognition mechanism has been discussed, that is based on the formation of C-H?π bond interaction between the methyl group of ketone molecule and the phenyl ring of the calixarene compound. The linear range of the TSM sensor upon exposure to 2-butanone vapour was 0-940.5 ppm with a detection limit of 2.67 ppm when the coating mass of the compound I was selected as 19 μg. The kinetics behaviours in the adsorption and desorption processes have been examined with polynomial curve fitting procedure. Furthermore, the proposed TSM sensor possessed good selectivity, reversibility, reproducibility and high stability. Compared with gas chromatography (GC) method, the proposed sensor can be used for on-line determination of 2-butanone vapour in air with a recovery of 94.8-106.5%, which was in consistent with those obtained by GC method.     

Opening and contact zones of an interface crack in a piezoelectric bimaterial under combined compressive-shear loading

A plane problem for a tunnel electrically permeable interface crack between two semi-infinite piezoelectric spaces is studied. A remote mechanical and electrical loading is applied. Elastic displacements and potential jumps as well as stresses and electrical displacement along the interface are presented using a sectionally holomorphic vector function. It is assumed that the interface crack includes zones of crack opening and frictionless contact. The problem is reduced to a combined Dirichlet–Riemann boundary value problem which is solved analytically. From the obtained solution, simple analytical expressions are derived for all mechanical and electrical characteristics at the interface. A quite simple transcendental equation, which determines the point of separation of open and close sections of the crack, is found. For the analysis of the obtained results, the main attention is devoted to the case of compressive-shear loading. The analytical analysis and numerical results show that, even if the applied normal stress is compressive, a certain crack opening zone exists for all considered loading values provided the shear field is present. It is found that the shear stress intensity factor at the closed crack tip and the energy release rates at the both crack tips depend very slightly on the magnitude of compressive loading.     

夹心式压电换能器的谐振频率跟踪方案设计

分析了夹心式压电换能器的阻抗特性,讨论了基于相位方式的现有跟踪方案的不足,提出了一种新的频率跟踪方案,介绍了实现该方案的电路系统。该方案的特点是:采用先扫频后跟踪的策略,解决了频率范围设定难的问题;增加解锁控制,使得系统在死锁或误跟踪时自动回到频率搜索状态;采用直接数字合成器(DDS)作为频率调整和信号产生的器件,实现了全数字系统,调整方便,精度高;采用复杂可编程逻辑器件(CPLD)做相位比较和DDS控制,使频率跟踪速度快,并且跟踪精度和速度均可控制。