Nonlinear dynamics of parametrically excited piezoelectric energy harvester with 1:3 internal resonance

In this work, the nonlinear dynamic analysis of a parametrically base excited cantilever beam based piezoelectric energy harvester is carried. The system consists of a cantilever beam with piezoelectric patches in bimorph configuration and attached mass at an arbitrary position. The attached mass is placed in such a way that the system exhibits 3:1 internal resonance. The governing spatio-temporal equation of motion is discretized to its temporal form by using generalized Galerkin’s method. To obtain the steady state voltage response and stability of the system, Method of multiple scales is used to reduce the resulting equation of motion into a set of first-order differential equations. The response and stability of the system under principal parametric resonance conditions has been studied. The parametric instability regions are shown for variation in different system parameters such as excitation amplitude and frequency, damping and load resistance. Bifurcations such as turning point, pitch-fork and Hopf are observed in the multi-branched non-trivial response. By tuning the attached mass an attempt has been made to harvest the electrical energy for a wider range of frequency. Such kind of smart self-sufficient systems may find application in powering low power wireless sensor nodes or micro electromechanical systems. •Nonlinear dynamics of a cantilever-based piezoelectric energy harvester is studied.•The system is base excited with an attached mass leading to 1:3 internal resonance.•Parametric instability regions, time and frequency responses have been determined.•Bifurcations such as turning point, pitch-fork and Hopf are observed in this system.•The present energy harvester generates more voltage than conventional harvesters.