This paper presents an experimental study of the broadband energy harvesting and dynamic responses of an L-shaped piezoelectric cantilever beam.Experimental results show that the L-shaped piezoelectric beam generates two optimal voltage peaks when the horizontal beam size is similar to the vertical beam size.Several optimized L-shaped piezoelectric cantilever beam structures are proposed.Power generation using the inverted bistable L-shaped beam is better.It is observed experimentally that the inverted bistable L-shaped beam structure shows obvious bistable characteristics and hard spring characteristics.Furthermore,the corresponding relationship between the bistable phase portrait and the potential energy curve is found in the experiment.This is the first time that a phase portrait for stiffness hardening of an L-shaped beam has been found experimentally.These results can be applied to analysis of new piezoelectric power generation structures.
In this paper, a simplified model of the bistable piezoelectric cantilever beam with magnets is established, and the potential energy of the bistable system is analyzed. We have proposed the bistable L-shaped beam structure, which has the same geometry dimensions of the bistable straight beam in the first time. The comparative study on power generations and dynamic responses of the bistable straight beam and the bistable L-shaped beam plays an important role in exploring excellent piezoelectric generator.The experiment structure includes the base layer and the piezoelectric layer. The harmonic excitation is given to the system.Theoretical analysis results show that the potential energy function of the system has two obvious steady potential wells. In addition, the depth of the upper potential well is different from that of the lower potential well when the gravity potential energy is considered. Experimental results demonstrate that the power generation for the straight beam is better than that of the horizontally placed L-shaped beam when the excitation amplitude is 450 m V. There is the existence that the energy harvesting capacity of the bistable L-shaped beam is better than that of the bistable straight beam when the excitation amplitude is 400 m V.Furthermore, the power generation of the bistable L-shaped beam with the upper potential well is obviously better than that of the bistable L-shaped beam with the lower potential well. In addition, comparing with the straight beam, the dynamic response of the bistable L-shaped beam is more complex when the external excitation frequency is changed. It is also observed that the distance between the magnets has the obvious influence on the dynamic response of the bistable system. It is very effective to select the appropriate distance between the magnets to improve the power generation of the bistable energy harvester under the fixed excitation conditions.
