Abstract
Energy harvesting, which converts ambient, otherwise wasted, energy sources into usable electricity, is expected to contribute to the formulation of a self-generating power grid. This type of grid can enable sustainable operation of wireless sensor networks as the “Smart City” vision becomes reality. Human walking is a plentiful mechanical energy source wasted during daily activities. This study aims to develop an omnidirectional biomechanical energy harvesting (OBEH) sidewalk block that is able to generate electricity from human walking. Here, a systematic design framework for the OBEH sidewalk block is presented; it consists of three important ingredients, specifically: (1) extraction of a footstep loading profile from human gait analysis; (2) electroelastically coupled finite element modeling to estimate the transient output responses under the footstep loading profile; and (3) reliability-based design optimization of the OBEH sidewalk block. This study considers two kinds of the inherent randomness, including (1) variability in the material properties and geometry; and (2) uncertainty in the position and direction of the footsteps. It can be concluded from the results that the optimum design of the proposed OBEH sidewalk block enables useful power generation while satisfying the target reliability of fatigue failure in the presence of the inherent randomness.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Abbreviations
- T ij :
-
Second-rank stress tensor
- S kl :
-
Second-rank strain tensor
- c ijkl :
-
Fourth-rank elastic modulus tensor
- s ijkl :
-
Fourth-rank elastic compliance tensor
- e kij :
-
Third-rank piezoelectric constant tensor
- E k :
-
Electric field vector
- D i :
-
Electric displacement vector
- ε ij :
-
Second-rank dielectric permittivity tensor
- C p :
-
Capacitance
- τ :
-
Time constant
- R L :
-
External electrical resistance
- h p :
-
Thickness of the piezoelectric layers
- h s :
-
Thickness of the structural layer
- r i :
-
Inner radius of the annular piezoelectric layers
- r o :
-
Outer radius of the annular piezoelectric layers
- d :
-
Design vector
- X :
-
Random vector
- OE:
-
Output energy generated by the piezoelectric layers
- G:
-
Performance function against fatigue failure
- σ p :
-
Maximum principal stress of the piezoelectric layers
- σ e :
-
Fatigue limit of the piezoelectric layers
- P t :
-
Target reliability
- A p :
-
Top surface area of the piezoelectric layer
- I[•]:
-
Indicator function
- Ωsafe :
-
Safe domain of a design vector space
References
Kim, H. S., Kim, J.-H., and Kim, J., “A Review of Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Based on Vibration,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, Vol. 12, No. 6, pp. 1129–1141, 2011.
Kim, J. E., Kim, H., Yoon, H., Kim, Y. Y., and Youn, B. D., “An Energy Conversion Model for Cantilevered Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesters Using Only Measurable Parameters,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing-Green Technology, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 51–57, 2015.
Park, H. and Kim, J., “Electromagnetic Induction Energy Harvester for High-Speed Railroad Applications,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing-Green Technology, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 41–48, 2016.
Park, J.-H., Lim, T.-W., Kim, S.-D., and Park, S.-H., “Design and Experimental Verification of Flexible Plate-Type Piezoelectric Vibrator for Energy Harvesting System,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing-Green Technology, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 253–259, 2016.
Park, H., “Vibratory Electromagnetic Induction Energy Harvester on Wheel Surface of Mobile Sources,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing-Green Technology, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 59–66, 2017.
Yoon, H., Youn, B. D., and Kim, H. S., “Kirchhoff Plate Theory-Based Electromechanically-Coupled Analytical Model Considering Inertia and Stiffness Effects of a Surface-Bonded Piezoelectric Patch,” Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 25, No. 2, Paper No. 025017, 2016.
Erturk, A. and Inman, D. J., “On Mechanical Modeling of Cantilevered Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesters,” Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, Vol. 19, No. 11, pp. 1311–1325, 2008.
Erturk, A. and Inman, D. J., “An Experimentally Validated Bimorph Cantilever Model for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting from Base Excitations,” Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 18, No. 2, Paper No. 025009, 2009.
Usharani, R., Uma, G., and Umapathy, M., “Design of High Output Broadband Piezoelectric Energy Harvester with Double Tapered Cavity Beam,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing-Green Technology, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 343–351, 2016.
Yun, S.-M. and Kim, C., “The Vibrating Piezoelectric Cantilevered Generator under Vortex Shedding Excitation and Voltage Tests,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, Vol. 17, No. 12, pp. 1615–1622, 2016.
Aggarwal, J. K. and Cai, Q., “Human Motion Analysis: A Review,” Computer Vision and Image Understanding, Vol. 73, No. 3, pp. 428–440, 1999.
Simon, S. R., “Quantification of Human Motion: Gait Analysis-Benefits and Limitations to Its Application to Clinical Problems,” Journal of Biomechanics, Vol. 37, No. 12, pp. 1869–1880, 2004.
Riemer, R. and Shapiro, A., “Biomechanical Energy Harvesting from Human Motion: Theory, State of the Art, Design Guidelines, and Future Directions,” Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation, Vol. 8, No. 1, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-0003-8-22, 2011.
Shenck, N. S. and Paradiso, J. A., “Energy Scavenging with Shoe-Mounted Piezoelectrics,” IEEE Micro, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 30–42, 2001.
Zhao, J. and You, Z., “A Shoe-Embedded Piezoelectric Energy Harvester for Wearable Sensors,” Sensors, Vol. 14, No. 7, pp. 12497–12510, 2014.
Pozzi, M. and Zhu, M., “Plucked Piezoelectric Bimorphs for Knee-Joint Energy Harvesting: Modelling and Experimental Validation,” Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 20, No. 5, Paper No. 055007, 2011.
Ko, C.-Y., Ko, J., Kim, H. J., and Lim, D., “New Wearable Exoskeleton for Gait Rehabilitation Assistance Integrated with Mobility System,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, Vol. 17, No. 7, pp. 957–964, 2016.
Hunt, A. E., Smith, R. M., Torode, M., and Keenan, A.-M., “Inter-Segment Foot Motion and Ground Reaction Forces Over the Stance Phase of Walking,” Clinical Biomechanics, Vol. 16, No. 7, pp. 592–600, 2001.
Levine, D., Richards, J., and Whittle, M., “Whittle’s Gait Analysis,” Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier, 5th Ed., 2012.
Yoon, H. and Youn, B. D., “Stochastic Quantification of the Electric Power Generated by a Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Using a Time-Frequency Analysis under Non-Stationary Random Vibrations,” Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 23, No. 4, Paper No. 045035, 2014.
Yoon, H., Kim, M., Park, C.-S., and Youn, B. D., “Time-Varying Output Performances of Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesting under Nonstationary Random Vibrations,” Smart Material Structures, Vol. 27, No. 1, Paper No. 015004, 2018.
Lee, S. and Youn, B. D., “A New Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Design Concept: Multimodal Energy Harvesting Skin,” IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 629–645, 2011.
Lee, S. and Youn, B. D., “A Design and Experimental Verification Methodology for an Energy Harvester Skin Structure,” Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 20, No. 5, Paper No. 057001, 2011.
De Marqui Junior, C., Erturk, A., and Inman, D. J., “An Electromechanical Finite Element Model for Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Plates,” Journal of Sound and Vibration, Vol. 327, No. 1, pp. 9–25, 2009.
Rupp, C. J., Evgrafov, A., Maute, K., and Dunn, M. L., “Design of Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Systems: a Topology Optimization Approach Based on Multilayer Plates and Shells,” Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, Vol. 20, No. 16, pp. 1923–1939, 2009.
Institute, A. N. S., “IEEE Standard on Piezoelectricity: An American National Standard,” Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1988.
Jung, B. C., Yoon, H., Oh, H., Lee, G., Yoo, M., et al., “Hierarchical Model Calibration for Designing Piezoelectric Energy Harvester in the Presence of Variability in Material Properties and Geometry,” Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, Vol. 53, No. 1, pp. 161–173, 2016.
Hu, C., Youn, B. D., and Yoon, H., “An Adaptive Dimension Decomposition and Reselection Method for Reliability Analysis,” Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 423–440, 2013.
Upadrashta, D., Yang, Y., and Tang, L., “Material Strength Consideration in the Design Optimization of Nonlinear Energy Harvester,” Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, Vol. 26, No. 15, pp. 1980–1994, 2015.
Bäck, T. and Schwefel, H.-P., “An Overview of Evolutionary Algorithms for Parameter Optimization,” Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1–23, 1993.
Yildiz, A. R., “Comparison of Evolutionary-Based Optimization Algorithms for Structural Design Optimization,” Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 327–333, 2013.
Gunst, R. F., “Response Surface Methodology: Process and Product Optimization Using Designed Experiments,” Taylor & Francis, 1996.
Huang, S.-C. and Dao, T.-P., “Design and Computational Optimization of a Flexure-Based XY Positioning Platform Using FEA-Based Response Surface Methodology,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, Vol. 17, No. 8, pp. 1035–1048, 2016.
Lee, H.-J., Park, S.-M., and Park, S.-J., “Minimization of Warpage for Wafer Level Package Using Response Surface Method,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, Vol. 17, No. 9, pp. 1201–1207, 2016.
Cho, S.-J., Cho, Y.-W., Lee, M. G., and Kim, J. H., “Variable Impact Analysis of Linear Generator by Using Response Surface Method,” International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, Vol. 17, No. 9, pp. 1223–1228, 2016.
Jin, R., Chen, W., and Simpson, T. W., “Comparative Studies of Metamodelling Techniques under Multiple Modelling Criteria,” Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 1–13, 2001.
Wang, G. G. and Shan, S., “Review of Metamodeling Techniques in Support of Engineering Design Optimization,” Journal of Mechanical Design, Vol. 129, No. 4, pp. 370–380, 2007.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cui, J., Yoon, H. & Youn, B.D. An Omnidirectional Biomechanical Energy Harvesting (OBEH) Sidewalk Block for a Self-Generative Power Grid in a Smart City. Int. J. of Precis. Eng. and Manuf.-Green Tech. 5, 507–517 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40684-018-0054-1
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40684-018-0054-1