Energy harvesting using piezoelectric materials

• Main Author: Tan, Kian Tong.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Alternative, renewable energy sources
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/50136
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In this report, the charging capacity of a single human in a crowd is analysed using a piezoelectric energy harvesting setup. The experiment involves a human test subject charging a rechargeable Nickel Metal Hydride battery by stepping on the piezoelectric material. The results has shown that the charging capability of a single human in a crowd is very little, accumulating 6 × 10-5 ampere-second of charge every minute. By changing the experimental setup, optimisation can be achieved and pitfalls can be uncovered. The pitfalls include the negative impact of damping, initial deformation and the extent of their impacts. However, that is in no way a representation of the charging capability of the entire crowd. The charging capability of an entire is definitely much higher as the amount of accumulated charge scales up with respect to the number of people in the crowd.