The dynamic characteristics of harvesting energy from mechanical vibration via piezoelectric conversion

As an alternative power solution for low-power devices, harvesting energy from the ambient mechanical vibration has received increasing research interest in recent years. In this paper we study the transient dynamic characteristics of a piezoelectric energy harvesting system including a piezoelectric energy harvester, a bridge rectifier, and a storage capacitor. To accomplish this, this energy harvesting system is modeled, and the charging process of the storage capacitor is investigated by employing the in-phase assumption The results indicate that the charging voltage across the storage capacitor and the gathered power increase gradually as the charging process proceeds, whereas the charging rate slows down over time as the charging voltage approaches to the peak value of the piezoelectric voltage across the piezoelectric materials. In addition, due to the added electrical damping and the change of the system natural frequency when the charging process is initiated, a sudden drop in the vibration amplitude is observed, which in turn affects the charging rate. However, the vibration amplitude begins to increase as the charging process continues, which is caused by the decrease in the electrical damping （i.e., the decrease in the energy removed from the mechanical vibration）. This electromechanical coupling characteristic is also revealed by the variation of the vibration amplitude with the charging voltage.