MODELING OF A CANTILEVER BEAM FOR PIEZOELECTRIC ENERGY HARVESTING

Andreza Tangerino Mineto, Meire Pereira de Souza Braun, Hlio Aparecido Navarro, Paulo Srgio Varoto
Departamento de Engenharia Mecnica, Escola de Engenharia de So Carlos, USP. Av. Trabalhador So-Carlense, 400, Centro, CEP
13566-590, So Carlos, SP, Brasil, {andreza;meireps;han;varoto}@sc.usp.br

Abstract: Piezoelectric materials have been found in several

applications as transducers which are possible to harvest
energy from vibrating structures. A simple transverse mode
type piezoelectric generator model based on EulerBernoulli
beam theory with the following assumptions is presented:
(a) the piezoelectric layer thickness in comparison to the
length of the beam is very thin and (b) the electrical field
between the upper surface and lower surface of the
piezoelectric layer is uniform. We applied this model to
predict the power generated from a cantilever steel beam
with harmonic oscillations using PZT-PIC 255. A
parametric study is also performed to optimize the energy
generation of piezoelectric-beam system.
Keywords: Piezoelectric Material, Energy Harvesting,
Cantilever Beam.

1. INTRODUCTION
In our world today, we are unmistakably moving
towards a technological way of life. More and more people
are carrying portable electronic devices than ever before.
These devices allow for unbelievable power and versatility
in communication and problem solving. But, as the
technology for portables has grown tremendously, battery
and energy storage technology has not kept up. New
technology allows for these portables to become smaller, but
battery size remains the same. Perhaps, sometimes the
battery must be larger in order to accommodate the greater
power demands by a portable device. An alternative for
batteries is to create energy while on the go. Using
piezoceramic materials (PZT) is one way we can accomplish
this [1]. Piezoelectrics are the most popular smart materials.
Piezoelectric materials have found widespread application
as transducers that are able to change electrical energy into
mechanical motion or force or vice versa [2].
Umeda et al. [3] were among the pioneers to study
the PZT generator and proposed an electrical equivalent
model being converted from mechanical lumped models of a
mass, a spring and a damper that describe a transformation
of the mechanical impact energy into electrical energy in the
PZT material. Roundy et al. [4-6] presented a slightly

different approach based on the electrical equivalent circuit

to describe the PZT bender, which leads to fair agreements
with the experimental results. However, the analysis only
considered a low-g (110 m.s-2) vibration condition and
lacks mechanical dynamics of the structure. Eggborn [1]
developed the analytical models to predict the energy
harvesting from a cantilever beam and a plate using
Bernoulli-beam theory and made a comparison with the
experimental result. Ajitsaria et al. [2] developed modeling
and analysis of a bimorph piezoelectric cantilever beam for
voltage generation using on the analytical approach based
on EulerBernoulli beam theory and Timoshenko beam
equations, which is then compared with two previously
described models in the literature: the electrical equivalent
circuit and energy method. In recent years, there have been a
considerable number of publications using various models
for the electromechanical behavior of piezoelectric energy
harvester beams, as can be seen in Anton and Sodano [7].
The models used in the literature range from elementary
single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) models to approximate
distributed parameter models as well as analytical
distributed parameter solution attempts. Because of the
diverse nature of researchers working in energy harvesting
(including electrical, mechanical and materials engineers),
several oversimplified and incorrect physical assumptions
have been propagated in the literature. Erturk and Inman
have recently published a series of papers on energy
harvesting using the cantilever model and their work
provide a broad coverage of several important modeling
aspects that were validated with experimental data [8-12].

2. MATHEMATICAL MODELING
The following section describes the development of the
PZT models and the analytical estimations of power
generation. It is presented a model of a beam with a single
wafer mounted on its surface.
The linear constitutive equations for a piezoelectric
material [13] have been employed in terms of the
piezoelectric coefficient e31, the dielectric constant33 , and
the electric field applied across the thickness of the layer Ez.

1
Proceedings of the 9th Brazilian Conference on Dynamics Control and their Applications
Serra Negra, SP - ISSN 2178-3667

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Modeling and simulation of a piezoelectric cantilever beam for power harvesting generation
A. T. Mineto, M.P. Souza Braun, H. A. Navarro, P. S. Varoto.

D z = e31 x + 33 E z

(1)

c2 =

The stress in z-direction is assumed zero. This occurs

when piezoelectric layer thickness in comparison to the
length of the beam can be considered very thin.

Eb I b
A

(5)

The frequency will be equal to the beams first natural

frequency because the largest deflections occur at the first
natural frequency. A general solution for this equation is
given by:

2.1 The Cantilever Beam Model

3

w( x, t ) = q i (t ) X i ( x )

Figure 1 shows the setup for the cantilever beam model.

The PZT patch is attached to the beam near the clamped
edge for maximum strain. For the estimated power that a
PZT can produce from beam vibrations to be calculated, the
moment that the PZT experiences must first be determined.

where qi is the i-th modal coordinate equation of the beam

and Xi is the i-th mode shape of the beam. For consistency,
only the first three mode shapes will be used in the
summation process described by Eq. 6.
Therefore, considering the free undamped vibration,

X i (x )

Lp

4
2 qi (t )
2 X i (x )
q (t )
=

c
x 4
t 2

2 q i (t )
Lb

Fig. 1. Cantilever Beam with attached PZT sensor

= n

X i (x ) = A1 cos (i x ) + A2 sin ( i x ) +
+ A3 cosh ( i x ) + A4 sinh ( i x )

(8)

(9)

(10)

Applying the boundary conditions is found the general

mode shape equation for a cantilever beam:

w( 0 , t ) = 0 ,

X i ( x ) = cosh ( i x ) cos( i x )

(3)

w xxx (Lb , t ) = 0
Considering a harmonic forcing function applied to a
single point on the beam, according to Fig. 1, we can write:

x 4
X i (x)

The solution of the second equation in Eq. (9) is:

where w is the displacement of the beam, is the density of

the steel beam, A is the cross-sectional area, and F(t) is the
external force applied to the beam. The boundary conditions
are:

w xx (Lb , t ) = 0,

2 qi (t )
2
t 2 + n qi (t ) = 0
4
2
X i x n X ( x ) = 0
i
x 4
c2

(2)

w x (0, t ) = 0,

t
q(t )

4 X i (x)

Here, we can write the Eq. (8) as:

The Euler-Bernoulli method is used to model the

cantilever beam. The governing undamped equation of
motion for the beam for forced motion under zero initial
conditions can be written as:

2 w(x, t ) 2 4 w(x, t ) F0
+c
=
sen(t ) (x L f
A
t 2
x 4

c2

2 w( x, t )
4 w( x , t )
= F (t )
+
E
I
b
b
t 2
x 4

(7)

Using the standard method of separation of variables in

the solution of Eq. 7, we have the equations:

Lf

(6)

i =1

senh( i Lb ) sen( i Lb )
(senh( i x) sen( i x))
cosh ( i Lb ) + cos( i Lb )

(11)

where Lb is the beam length.

In the Eq. (11), i can be write as:

(4)

i =

where is the frequency, Lf is the position of the applied

force and c2 can be written as:

ni2
c2

(12)

where ni, the i-th natural frequency, is found from the

characteristic equation:

Proceedings of the 9th Brazilian Conference on Dynamics Control and their Applications
Serra Negra, SP - ISSN 2178-3667

600

Modeling and simulation of a piezoelectric cantilever beam for power harvesting generation
A. T. Mineto, M.P. Souza Braun, H. A. Navarro, P. S. Varoto.

cos ( i Lb ) cosh ( i Lb ) = 1

I=

(13)

q i (t ) =

di

Im =

e nit Fi ( )e ni t sen( di (t ))d

(20)

Combining equations (17), (19) and (20) the amplitude

of the current can be determined as:

More details regarding the solution process can be found

in Inman [14].
For the first equation in (9), we have the solution:

V
R

bt b e31 [ (0 ) (Lb )]

(21)

21 + bL p 33
t a

(14)

where d is the damped natural frequency and is the

damping ratio.
Now the equation (6) already can be evaluated.

Now the power can be evaluated as:

2

P = Im R

(22)

2.2 Electromechanical Coupling Modeling

Recalling the constitutive equations for a piezoelectric
material and based in Lu et al. [13], the charge collected on
the electrode surface can be expressed as the electrical
displacement integral on the area of the surface according
to:

3. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The numerical simulations were developed using
MATLAB. Table 1 exhibits the beam and the PZT
dimensions and properties used in this work.

Lb

Q = b (e31 x + 33 E z )dx

(15)

where b is the width of the beam.

Table 1. Dimensions and properties of beam and PZT

Assuming that the voltage potential between the upper

surface and lower surface of the piezoelectric layer is
denoted as V, under the uniform electrical field hypotheses, the
electric field can be approximately expressed as [13]:

Ez =

V
ta

Beam (steel)

PZT(PIC255)

(16)

where ta is the thickness of the piezoelectric layer.

Substitution of the equation (16) into (15) leads to:

Q=

bt b e31
[ (0) (Lb )] bL p 33 V
2
ta

(17)

where is the slope of deflection of the beam

(deformation) and tb is the thickness of the beam. The slope
of deflection of the beam can be write as:

( x, t ) =

( x, t )
x

Value
0.5 m
0.05 m
0.04 m
7.85x103 Kg/m3
210x109 Pa
0.05 m
0.05 m
0.5x10-3 m
11.2 Cm2

33

0 =8.85x10-12F/m

1800 0

To produce maximum electrical power from

piezoelectric elements which are attached to vibrating
structures, the structures should be excited at their first
natural frequency where they experience the largest
deflections [1]. In this study, the beam is excited at the first
natural frequency 1 = 13.4 Hz.
For the time being the external force amplitude F was set
to 1 N and it was applied at the free end of the beam. The
PZT was attached to the beam near the clamped edge.
Figure 2 shows the relationship between power and
resistance R, which range from 0 until 1000 k with interval
1 k.

(18)

The current, charge and voltage are all functions of the

time. The frequency of these period functions is dependent
upon the mechanical vibration. The amplitude of the current
is that of the charge times the frequency that is given as:

I = Q

Parameter
Length Lb
Width b
Thickness tb
Density
Youngs Modulus Eb
Length Lp
Width b
Thickness ta
Piezoelectric
Constant e31
Dielectric Constant

(19)

The relation between voltage and current for an electrical

circuit with pure resistance is expressed as:

Proceedings of the 9th Brazilian Conference on Dynamics Control and their Applications
Serra Negra, SP - ISSN 2178-3667

601

Modeling and simulation of a piezoelectric cantilever beam for power harvesting generation
A. T. Mineto, M.P. Souza Braun, H. A. Navarro, P. S. Varoto.

Fig. 2. Power as function of the resistance

Fig. 4. Power versus location of the applied force

There is an optimal resistance that gives the maximum

output power. Figure 2 shows that the external resistance of
149 k gives the maximum power of 2.6 mW.
So, the voltage calculated for the R = 149 k as function
of the time is presented in figure 3. Considering this graph,
the integration time for steady-steady regime was from 2.0
to 4.5 s with time-step of 1.0 ms.

The maximum power 2.6 mW was obtained with the

force at location 0.5m, i.e., the optimal location for the force
is at the free end of the beam.
It is observed that to all the others locations of the force,
the maximum power was obtained for the same value of the
resistance value of 149 k.
The piezoelectric material location is important to the
output power. It must be fixed where there are the largest
beam strains. The largest strain occurs at the clamped edge
of the cantilever beam Crawley [15].
For the next analysis, the PZT will be sequentially
moved along the beam from position i=1 to 10, where for
each arbitrary position i, the PZT will be localized
in (1 i )L p x iL p . This can be seen in figure 5.

Fig. 3. PZT voltage

In the next two figures, it will be considered a variation

in the PZT position and the location of the applied force.
Figure 4 shows the location of the applied force varying
between 0.01m and 0.5m with interval of 0.01m.

Fig. 5. Power versus position of the PZT

In the position i=1, i.e., 0 x L p , occurs the maximum

power. Here it is observed the constant value for the
resistance in all positions too.
Figures 4 and 5 justify our choice for the force location
and PZT position in figures 2 and 3. In all next figures this
choice will be maintained.

Proceedings of the 9th Brazilian Conference on Dynamics Control and their Applications
Serra Negra, SP - ISSN 2178-3667

602

Modeling and simulation of a piezoelectric cantilever beam for power harvesting generation
A. T. Mineto, M.P. Souza Braun, H. A. Navarro, P. S. Varoto.

Now, in figure 6 will be analyzed the influence of the

vibration amplitude in output power.

Fig. 8. Power as a function of frequency with different resistance

values
Fig. 6. Power versus frequency

Note that all maximum power values occurred for the

first natural frequency 13.4 Hz. For the resistance 10 k and
500 k, the power maximum obtained was 0.6 mW and 1.8
mW, respectively.
Erturk and Innam [9] emphasized that the modeling
based on EulerBernoulli beam theory do not consider the
effect of backward piezoelectric coupling in the beam
equation, which may result in very inaccurate predictions.
To finish, will be made an investigation about the
influence of PZT length.
Initially, the PZT fixed on the beams clamped end will
have a length, Lp, of 0.05m and will be increased 0.01m
until it covers the entire length of the beam. The result can
be in figure 9.

We can see that the peak of a power occur in natural

frequencies. For the first natural frequency 13.4 Hz we
obtained the maximum power 2.6 mW, as expected. For the
second natural frequency 83.8 Hz, the power was 0.27 mW
with resistance 24 k. The power 0.063 mW was obtained
for the third natural frequency 234.6 Hz, with resistance 9
k. Note the direct proportionality between power and
resistance.
Figure 7 gives the output powers of generators as a
function of the external resistance with three different
vibration frequencies.

Fig. 7. Power as a function of resistance with different frequencies

Fig. 9. Power versus PZT length

The figures above compare the maximum power

obtained with excitation at first natural frequency 13.4 Hz
with two others. For both frequencies, 12.7 Hz and 14.7 Hz,
the power found was lower than 2.6 mW. For frequency
12.7 Hz, the power was 0.67 mW with resistance 57 k.
The power 0.22 mW was found to frequency 14.7 Hz, with
resistance 136 k.
Figure 8 shows the power as a function of frequency for
three fixed resistance (R=10 k, 149 k and 500 k,).

The maximum power obtained was 6.5 mW with PZT

length Lp = 0.26m, approximately when the PZT covers half
the beam. The resistance values associated with the
maximum power at each point, dont follow the same trend
of the figure 9. Table 2 shows that resistance decreases
when increases Lp.

Proceedings of the 9th Brazilian Conference on Dynamics Control and their Applications
Serra Negra, SP - ISSN 2178-3667

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Modeling and simulation of a piezoelectric cantilever beam for power harvesting generation
A. T. Mineto, M.P. Souza Braun, H. A. Navarro, P. S. Varoto.
Table 2. Resistance and power as function of the PZT length

Lp [m]
0.05
0.1
0.2
0.26
0.3
0.4
0.5

Resistance [k]
149
75
37
29
25
19
15

REFERENCES

Power [mW]
2.6
4.4
6.3
6.5
6.4
5.5
4.5

[1] T. Eggborn, Analytical models to predict power

harvesting with piezoelectric materials, Dissertao
de Mestrado - Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University, 2003.
[2] J. Ajitsaria, S.Y. Choe, D. Shen, D.J. Kim, Modeling
and analysis of a bimorph piezoelectric cantilever
beam for voltage generation, Smart Materials and
Structures, Vol.16, pp.447-454, 2007.
[3] M. Umeda, K. Nakamura, and S. Ueha, Analysis of the
transformation of mechanical impact energy to electric
energy using piezoelectric vibrator, Japan J. Appl.
Phys., Vol. 35, pp. 32673273, 1996.

For the optimal length of 0.26m the resistance obtained

was 29 k, but it is not viable to use this PZT length. When
the PZT used reaches a certain length, it will start to affect
the overall characteristics of the beam system, changing the
effective cross-section, Youngs modulus, and natural
frequencies. This will have adverse effects, reducing the
beam deflections, strain experienced by the PZT, and overall
power produced [1].

[4] S. Roundy, P. K. Wright, A piezoelectric vibration

based generator for wireless electronics, Smart Mater.
Struct., Vol.13, pp.11311142, 2004.
[5] S. Roundy, On the effectiveness of vibration-base
energy harvesting, J. Intell. Mater. Syst. Struct., Vol.
16, pp.809823, 2005.

4. CONCLUSION

[6] S. Roundy, E. S. Leland, J. Baker, E. Carleton, E. Reilly,

E. Lai, B. Otis, J. M. Rabaey, P. K. Wright, and V.
Sundararajan, Improving power output for vibrationbased energy scavengers, IEEE Trans. Pervasive
Comput., Vol. 4, pp. 2836, 2005.

A simple transverse mode type piezoelectric generator

model is presented. We have following remarks:
(a) the EulerBernoulli beam theory is assumed and the
effect of backward piezoelectric coupling in the beam
equation is not observed, but we capture the influence of the
natural frequency (uncoupled with the resistance) in power
generation for some values of the resistance where the peak
value do not vary with the resistance.
(b) the following two assumptions: - layer thickness
piezoelectric in comparison to the length of the beam is very
thin and - the electrical field between the upper surface and
lower surface of the piezoelectric layer is uniform, do not
permitted the thickness ratio (PZT/beam) optimization.
(c) a parametric study is performed to optimize (location of
the applied force, PZT position and PZT length) the power
generation of piezoelectric-beam system. The maximum
power was obtained for the applied force in the free-end
beam; the PZT located close to clamped end; and PZT
length about the half of the beam, but sometimes this is not
viable.
(d) it is shown that results obtained from the electrical
power calculations indicated that optimal resistance values
can be achieved for a particular PZT length and location that
will give maximum output electrical power.

[7] S.R. Anton, H.A. Sodano, A review of Power

harvesting using piezoelectric materials (2003-2006),
Smart Materials and Structures,Vol.16, pp.R1-R21,
2007.
[8] A. Erturk, D.J. Inman, A distributed parameter
electromechanical model for cantilevered piezoelectric
energy harvesters, Journal of Vibration and Acoustics,
Vol. 130, 041002, 2008.
[9] A. Erturk, D. J. Innam, Issues in mathematical
modeling of piezoelectric energy harvesters, Smart
Materials and Structures, Vol.17, 065016 (14pp), 2008.
[10] A. Erturk, D. J. Innam, On mechanical modeling of
cantilevered piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters,
J. Intell. Mater. Syst. Struct., Vol. 19, pp.13111325,
2008.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

[11] A. Erturk, J.M. Renno, D. J. Innam, Modeling of

piezoelectric energy harvesting from an L-shaped beammass structure with an application to UAVs,Vol. 20, pp.
529-544, 2009.

The first and the second authors acknowledge the

financial support received from CAPES (Coordenao de
Aperfeioamento de Pessoal de Nvel Superior) through a
graduate scholarship. The third author thanks CNPqConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfico e
Tecnolgico. Professor Paulo Varoto acknowledges
FAPESP (grant # 09/06347-7).

[12] A. Erturk, D. J. Innam, An experimentally validated

bimorph contilever model for piezoelectric energy
garvesting from base excitations, Vol. 18, 025009
(18pp), 2009.
[13] F. Lu, H. P. Lee, S. P. Lim, Modeling and analysis of
micro piezoelectric power generators for micro-

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Modeling and simulation of a piezoelectric cantilever beam for power harvesting generation
A. T. Mineto, M.P. Souza Braun, H. A. Navarro, P. S. Varoto.

electromechanical-systems
applications,
Smart
Materials and Structures, Vol.13, pp. 57-63, 2004.
[14] D. J. Inman, Engineering Vibration, 2nd edition,
Prentice Hall, 2000.
[15] E. F. Crawley, J. de Luis, Use of Piezoelectric
Actuators as Elements of Intelligent Structures, Present
as Paper 86-0878 at the AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS
Active Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials
Conference, San Antonio, TX, May 19-21, 1986.

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