Output performance analysis of a piezoelectric micro nuclear battery powered by radioisotopes

This paper investigates the output performance (output voltage, electrical energy output, power output) of a piezoelectric micro nuclear battery powered by radioisotopes. The theoretical formulations are base on Euler–Bernoulli beam theory and include the effects of load nonlinearity due to radioactive source. By employing extended Hamilton’s principle, the nonlinear electromechanical Lagrange equations are derived then solved by using Runge–Kutta method to obtain the dynamic output response. The results based on present electromechanical dynamic model are validated through direct comparisons with the results in the open literatures. The effects of initial gap, length of the piezoelectric layer, thickness of the collector and load impedance on the output voltage, energy output and power output of the piezoelectric micro nuclear battery are discussed in detail.