Design of a Honeycomb Shaped Piezoelectric Energy Harvester

In this paper, design of a hexagon shape piezoelectric generator was done by using Finite Element Method (FEM) and generating characteristics of the prototype generator were experimented. The generating device was composed of a thin hexagonal steel plate and a frame-shaped hexagonal ceramic which was attached on the steel plate. This structure has a merit to lessen the stress of ceramic when vibration is applied on the center of the plate. The output of the hexagon generator can be improved, because its area is larger than foursquare area when perimeter is same. Also, when array the generators on a surface it can get high efficiency compared with a round shape device, because there is no wasting space. The generator was named as honeycomb shape piezoelectric generator, because merits of this structure are similar to the merits of honeycomb of a bee. Design and analysis of the generator was done by simulating the output characteristics according to the change of parameters by using FEM program. Output char...