Laboratory based experimental investigation of patch based piezoelectric energy harvesters for civil infrastructure

Vibration energy harvesting technology applications for civil infrastructure has received significant interest in recent times. This is due to the advantages that are associated with power independent, output only energy harvesters which have the potential to act as either the power supply to low-power wireless sensors or as power independent sensors. Studies into the deployment of such harvesters with civil infrastructure applications have shown a potential range of applications ranging including high-rise buildings, pipelines, bridge infrastructure and wind turbine structures. While there can be immense cost associated with validation of energy harvesters through full-scale testing with civil infrastructure, laboratory based validation provides an inexpensive method of validating specific vibration energy harvesting devices with individual structures. By applying available datasets of vibrational response of civil infrastructure to the device using the shaker unit, the individual devices may be tested for realistic excitation conditions without any scaling of the structures vibrational response being required. This paper considers the use of laboratory based testing procedures for the experimental validation of patch based energy harvesters. The theoretical performance of the harvester for a model bridge undergoing train loadings is determined and the performance using measured datasets from full scale testing for train bridge interaction is similarly shown. An experimental setup is created to experimentally test the energy harvesters and the results of the experimental results versus the theoretical expectations are compared. This paper helps further establish the importance of laboratory based testing for vibration energy harvesters with civil infrastructure applications.