Vibration Bandgaps of Piezoelectric Metamaterial Plate with Local Resonators for Vibration Energy Harvesting

Abstract

Embedded wireless sensing networks (WSNs) provide effective solutions for structural health monitoring (SHM), where how to provide long-term electric power is a bottle-neck problem. Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting (PVEH) has been widely studied to realize self-powered WSNs due to piezoelectric effect. Structural vibrations are usually variable and exist in the form of elastic waves, so cantilever-like harvesters are not appropriate. In this paper, one kind of two-dimensional (2D) piezoelectric metamaterial plates with local resonators (PMP-LR) is investigated for structural vibration energy harvesting. In order to achieve low-frequency and broadband PVEH in SHM, it is highly necessary to study dynamic characteristics of PMP-LR, particularly bandgaps. Firstly, an analytical model is developed based on the Kirchhoff plate theory, and modal analysis is done by using the Rayleigh–Ritz method. Then, effects of geometric and material parameters on vibration bandgaps are analyzed by finite element-based simulations. In the end, experiments are carried out to validate the simulated results. The results demonstrate that the location of bandgaps can be easily adjusted by the design of local resonators. Therefore, the proposed method will provide an effective tool for optimizing local resonators in PMP-LR.