A study of the electric circuit for a vibration energy harvesting absorber

In the last decade the demand of wireless sensors and low-power electronic devices for condition monitoring in vibrating structures has been strongly increased. For this purpose piezoelectric transducers for harvesting the vibration energy are an eligible solution for powering these devices. In order to optimize the electromechanically coupled system and predict the highest power produced a complex model, including mechanical structure, piezoelectric element and electric circuit is required. When a practical electric circuit and a complex mechanical system are considered in the system design, the accuracy of the model becomes a challenging task. Simulating a two degree of freedom system, the aim of the present paper is to provide a comprehensive strategy to estimate the power generated by a piezoelectric layers. With the aim of harvesting power a standard rectifier circuit is connected to the transducers. Afterwards in the experiments the numerical results of the energy harvesting vibration absorber (EHVA) were validated.