Energy harvesting of a fluid-conveying piezoelectric pipe

This paper reports on an investigation of nonlinear energy harvesting from fluid-conveying piezoelectric pipes for self-powered sensing. Based on Euler Bernoulli theory, a distributed-parameter electromechanical model was employed to explore the nonlinear dynamics of fluid-conveying piezoelectric pipes. The Galerkin method and harmonic-balance analysis were employed to find output frequency response functions (OFRFs) and system transfer functions of the fluid-conveying piezoelectric pipes. The influences of fluid velocity on energy harvesting are also discussed. With an increase of fluid velocity, the resonance peak moves towards lower frequency, the odd-mode resonant peak amplitudes decrease, and the even mode resonant peak amplitudes increase. The semi-analytical results are supported by a numerical finite-difference method. The results demonstrate that the displacement, voltage, current, and power OFRFs can be increased by increasing the excitation amplitude and reducing the damping coefficient. The results show the advantage of using the voltage OFRF of the transverse vibrations of fluid-conveying piezoelectric pipes for self-powered sensing.