Study of a Microbistable Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

A microbistable piezoelectric energy harvester has been developed. The harvester was based on a center-fixed and quadrilateral-free microbistable plate with mass blocks placed at the four corners. Considering the thermoelectromechanical coupling effect, a nonlinear oscillation differential equation was established by Hamilton’s principle. Strain gradient theory was applied to consider the size effect, and von Karman theory was used to consider the large deformation effect. The influences of the laying position and area of the piezoelectric layer on the efficiency of energy capture were investigated. The voltage-frequency response of the nonlinear system was investigated, and the snap-through behavior of the bistable plate results in energy harvesting achieving the ideal broaden frequency range before the resonance region.