Design, modeling and testing of a vibration absorption device with energy harvesting based on force amplifier and piezoelectric stack

This article presents the design, modeling and testing of a novel vibration absorption device with energy harvest based on compliant mechanism and piezoelectric stack. The vibration absorption device can absorb external vibration with high bandwidth through a hybrid compliant mechanism. Meanwhile, the mechanical energy of the vibration can be converted into electrical energy by piezoelectric stack. The hybrid compliant mechanism contains a bridge type force amplifier and a lever type force amplifier both based on flexure hinges. The analytical model is established for predicting the force amplification ratio and the output electricity power. Also, the dimensions of the device are optimized. A prototype is fabricated and tested with input vibration at different frequencies. The experimental results are well identical with the analytical model. In addition, the proposed vibration absorption device has better performance by comparing with existing designs.