A Statically Balanced Compliant Ortho-Planar Mechanism for Low-Frequency Energy Harvesting

T. W.A. Blad*, R. A.J. Van Ostayen, J. L. Herder, N. Tolou

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
14 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The usually high eigenfrequencies of miniaturized oscillators can be significantly lowered by reducing the stiffness through stiffness compensation. In this work, a mechanical design for a compliant ortho-planar mechanism is proposed in which the stiffness is compensated to such a degree that it can be identified as statically balanced. The mechanism was fabricated using laser micro-machining and subsequently preloaded through packaging. The statically balanced property of the mechanism was experimentally validated by a measurement of the force-deflection relation. A piezoelectric version of the design was fabricated for the purpose of energy harvesting from low-frequency motion. For a sub 1 Hz excitation, the device demonstrated an average power output of 21.7 μW and an efficiency that compares favorably to piezoelectric energy harvesters reported in the literature. Therefore, it was found that stiffness compensation is a promising method for the design of piezoelectric energy harvesters for low-frequency motions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number073302
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Mechanical Design, Transactions of the ASME
Volume144
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care
Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

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