Design and Simulation of Various Shapes of Cantilever for

Piezoelectric Power Generator by Using Comsol

P. Graak1, A. Gupta1, S. Kaur1, P. Chhabra*1, D. Kumar**1, A. Shetty2

1
Electronic Science Department, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, 136119
2
Electrical Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012
*1Email: priya.chhabra@kuk.ac.in

Abstract: The environs vibration-based Micro used directly for application like sensors or
electromechanical systems (MEMS) storage devices. The energy can be available in
piezoelectric harvester provides a green and various forms like vibration, light, temperature
virtually infinite alternative power source over gradient energy harvester does not require an
traditional energy sources. Here we are using the external energy source and compatible with
application in power generator by the help of MEMS technology. Piezoelectric material shows
Micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) the piezoelectric effect which says that a change
which can be refer to devices that have in electrical charge will be there if the material is
characteristic length of less than 1 mm but more strained. Such material give high potential as
than 1 micron, that combine electrical and compared to other hence can be a choice to work
mechanical components. By using the structural on. We have selected piezoelectric material as
mechanics module of Comsol Multiphysics 4.4, compared to the other material because it has
we make the various geometries of the cantilever high piezoelectric coefficient. So power
beam in order to compare displacement and requirement of micro devices like as of wireless
electric potential and hence to calculate the sensors or storage devices is less than the 100
generated power. A layer of piezoelectric microwatt and that can be accomplished by the
material (PZT-5H) is added to the cantilever of help of the designs mentioned in this paper [10].
specified thickness 0.5 m and base material as Piezoelectric as a power generators are mostly
silicon of thickness 1.5 m and using the used because these materials have the advantage
piezoelectric devices module of Comsol of large power and ease of application. This
Multiphysics. The prototype of E shaped paper represents the analysis and simulated
cantilever shows greatest deflection of 0.6078 MEMS based piezoelectric cantilever beams as
m and the power as 49.05 W, whereas the T the geometry of the shape designed will have
and pie shaped cantilever gives a less effect on the produced vibration [9]. We
piezoelectric voltage of 0.0386 V and 0.0426 V proposed the various piezoelectric cantilever
with displacement of 0.5288 m and 0.3517 m beams (T, pi, E) using the Structural mechanics
respectively and the power which generated is as module in COMSOL Multiphysics to convert
29.2 W and 36.29 W. mechanical energy into electrical energy. This
electrical energy can be used as an alternative
power source for portable electronics. We
Keywords: Micro electromechanical systems compared their properties by changing the
(MEMS), Energy harvester, Cantilever. various materials and then chosen the one with
well defined outcomes at lower commercial
1. Introduction values along with ease of availability as
described in the later sections.
The ambient vibrations can be of great promise
for harvesting energy initially at small scale to 2. Design Parameters
use for micro and nano scale devices. Such
vibrations converted to electrical energy by 2.1 Geometry
piezoelectric transducer due to their major E shaped cantilever is a beam anchored at only
significance. Various research journals have one end and having greater length as compare to
introduced the phenomenon of energy its width and thickness. In this research paper
optimization to increase the generated power and we prescribed the equations to understand the

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the 2015 COMSOL Conference in Pune

behavior and geometry of E shape cantilever as the piezoelectric coefficients for the material,
shown in figure1. and it appears twice in the constitutive equation
(the superscript t stands for matrix-transpose.
The power is calculated from equation 5.

(5)
Where Pave is the average power generated and
V is the electric potential found via the
simulation of the cantilever beams and Rload is
the resistive load or impedance [11].

3. Use of COMSOL Multiphysics

Figure 1: Geometry of E shaped cantilever
3.1 Energy Harvesting Model
To calculate the deflection in the cantilever beam
is described in equation 1, which is also known Cantilever beam consists of two layers, base
to be as Stoneys formula. As it relates cantilever layer as silicon and upper layer is made up of
end deflection to applied stress . PZT-5H material. The one end of the beam is
fixed and another end is suspended freely. When
the beam gets the force [2] from the produced
vibrations the cantilever will deflect in up and
(1) down direction. This mechanical energy of the
beam will get converted into electrical energy by
Where is Poisson's ratio, E is Young's the process shown in Figure 2.
modulus, L is the beam length and t is the
cantilever thickness. Very sensitive optical and
capacitive methods have been developed to
measure changes in the static deflection of
cantilever beams. The cantilever spring constant
k relates to the cantilever dimensions and
material constants are given by:

(2)

Where F is the applied force and is the

applied stress, E is young modulus, t is the
thickness of the cantilever beam, L is the total
length, w is the width and k is the rotational
Figure 2: Model of energy harvesting system
stiffness. The movement of the cantilever is
effected by its length, width, thickness and It includes an external energy source that is force
various properties of the material used to make produced from the various vibrations in the
the structure. The geometric shape, as well as the studied environment. The interfacing circuit
material used to build the cantilever includes a transducer to convert mechanical
determines the cantilevers stiffness. The energy produced as a result of deflection from
mechanical and electrical behaviour can be cantilever beam to electric power and also
modeled by two constitutive equations. consists of harvesting circuit which is used to
(3) optimize the harvesting efficiency [3]. At the end
a storage battery or a load circuit has been used
(4)
Where, piezoelectric material's stress (T), strain in order to store the harvested energy. Much
research has been focused on harvesting electric
(S), charge-density displacement (D), and
power from the different body parts like finger
electric field (E) interact. The matrix d contains
tapping and motion produced by walking. Figure

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the 2015 COMSOL Conference in Pune

3 describes the flow chart about the steps Table1: Material properties
involved in the designing of cantilever geometry.
All the mentioned steps will be explicated in
detail in the upcoming sections. Material Material used in cantilever
Propertie
s
PZT ZnO AlN BaTi Si
-5H O3
Youngs 63 170 344 67 165
Modulus
(GPa)
Density 7500 5606 3260 5800 2330
(kg/m3)

Poisons 0.31 0.30 0.22 0.36 0.3

Ratio

3.3 Simulation Setup

Comsol Multiphysics a finite element method

(FEM) based partial differential equation (PDE)
solver is used to simulate our devices. The
geometries consist of silicon cantilevers with a
layer on top as the piezoelectric layer with their
specific device dimensions are shown in table 2.
The length of the cantilevers is fixed as 60 m
and the width is fixed at 10 m. We have taken a
Si layer of thickness 1.5 m and an upper layer
of thickness 0.5 m.

Table 2: Device specification

Layer Length Width Thickness

Figure 3: Modeling Process steps for energy (m) (m) (m)
harvesting system Silicon 60 10 1.5
PZT-5H 60 10 0.5
3.2 Materials Properties
We used the structural mechanics module of
Comsol Multiphysics to simulate the mechanical
Five materials have been used in this design such
domains and the piezoelectric devices module to
as lead zirconium titanate (PZT-5H), Zinc oxide
simulate the piezoelectric properties of the PZT-
(ZnO), Aluminium nitride (AlN), Barium
5H layer [5]. In this we study four geometries
titanate (BaTiO3), Silicon (Si). The bottom layer
namely conventional pi shaped cantilever, T
and top layer are made up of Silicon and
shaped cantilever and finally an E shaped
piezoelectric material respectively. Some
cantilever. One of the cantilever ends is assigned
materials were already defined previously can be
a fixed boundary condition and the other ends
found in the materials database folder of the
are given a free boundary condition. We keep the
program, where as some materials could be filled
bottom of the piezoelectric layer as ground and
by the users. Two focused materials which have
assign a floating potential condition to the top
been used throughout all processes namely, PZT-
surface of the piezoelectric layer. A constant
5H [4] and Silicon though their significant
force of 0.5 N is applied on all the cantilevers.
properties are described in Table1.

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the 2015 COMSOL Conference in Pune

4. Result and Discussion

In the figure 4(a), 4(b) and so far up to 6(b)

depicts the result related the displacement and
generated piezoelectric voltages for various
geometries simulated. As per theoretical criteria,
we observed an increase in deflection with a
decrease and hike in electric potential which
leads to the increase in the generated power [6].
The E shape from the all other traditional
geometries will have maximum displacement. It
is well in case of PZT-5H but not of same
extremity with other materials, as explicated in Figure 5(a) Displacement of T shaped Cantilever
the material section. The force for simulation of
various geometries will kept the same in all cases
but provide us with different values. [7]. The
displacement and generated piezoelectric voltage
and the generated power of different geometries
has been compared in Table 3 on the basis of
simulated geometries in the Comsol
Multiphysics. From the following comparison
we can lead towards the best suited geometry for
the harvesting application which gives us the
maximum power at the generator end as
discussed in the later section [8].
Figure5 (b) Generated piezoelectric voltage in T
shaped cantilever

Figure 4(a) Displacement of pi shaped Cantilever

Figure 6(a) Displacement of E shaped Cantilever

Figure 6 (b) Generated piezoelectric voltages in E

Figure 4(b) Generated piezoelectric voltage in pi shaped Cantilever
shaped cantilever.

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the 2015 COMSOL Conference in Pune

 Table 3: Comparison of deflection, generated micro scale as well on the major scale if the
piezoelectric voltages and power for various durability and efficiency will seems well after
geometries fabrication of the designs as mentioned in the
paper.
Geometry Displacem Piezoelect Power
ent (m) ric Generate
Voltage d (W) 6. References
(V)
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of the vibrations sense by the various designed
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cantilever beams can be converted into
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electricity. The various shapes discussed above
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can be the best source of energy harvesting. It
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based smart devices which can be used for the

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the 2015 COMSOL Conference in Pune

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7. Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank national

program on micro and smart system group
(NPMASS) in order to provide the COMSOL
Multiphysics tool: MEMS for academic use and
its help and support.

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the 2015 COMSOL Conference in Pune