The effects of width reduction on cantilever type piezoelectric energy harvesters

In this paper, energy harvesting capability is examined by changing the width of cantilever beam and piezoelectric cellulose. It is started from hypothesis that if cantilever piezoelectric energy harvester with given width are split, it would increase power output due to the fact that the divided pieces have smaller damping ratio than the original single piece, in turn, they are supposed to vibrate with high amplitude at resonance frequency. In the experiment, as a piezoelectric material, cellulose Piezo Paper is prepared with aluminum electrode deposition. By attaching the Piezo Paper on an aluminum beam, a cantilever type piezoelectric energy harvester is made. The given width of the beam is 5cm, and sets of Piezo Papers with different width and number of beams are made as, 5cm x 1, 2.5cm x 2, 1.66cm x 3, 1.25cm x 4, 1cm x 5 and 0.83cm x 6 beams. Cantilever beams are vibrated on a shaker at its resonance frequency and examined their electrical characteristics in terms of output voltage and current. The results are compared with the original beam of 5 cm wide.