Performance and behavior analysis of piezoelectric energy harvesting floor tiles

This paper presents the performance and behavior analysis of two unlike piezoelectric energy harvesting floor tiles in which they are functioned with different frequency up-conversion strategies to achieve the high energy conversion efficiency from low and variable-frequency vibration as the human footstep. One of such strategies is to convert the frequency of piezoelectric bimorph up through the magnetic interaction between a permanent magnet and an iron plate, while another one is achieved on that through the mechanical impact between a cover plate and a wall of the floor tile. Experimentally, the floor tiles having one piezoelectric bimorph inside of them are prototyped and then mounted to their individual input-exciting kit to investigate the energy harvesting performance. The input-exciting kits are employed to simulate the human footstep on floor tiles. The results show that the floor tile with frequency up-converting mechanism based on mechanical impact should be a better option for energy harvesting from human footstep due to the low-profile structure and good energy harvesting performance. Moreover, its operational way can result in long-lasting piezoelectric bimorph. When a cover plate is actuated to move down with the velocity of 54.13 mm/s and then released, the floor tile can produce the average power of 0.82 mW at load resistance approximately of 55.68 kΩ.