%A Hailu YANG, Dongwei CAO %T An investigation on stress distribution effect on multi- piezoelectric energy harvesters %0 Journal Article %D 2017 %J Front. Struct. Civ. Eng. %J Frontiers of Structural and Civil Engineering %@ 2095-2430 %R 10.1007/s11709-017-0404-z %P 301-307 %V 11 %N 3 %U {https://journal.hep.com.cn/fsce/EN/10.1007/s11709-017-0404-z %8 2017-08-24 %X

With the fast development of piezoelectric materials and due to its green and renewable characteristics, the piezoelectric energy harvesting technology has been paid more and more attention by pavement engineers. The stress distribution will significantly affect the piezoelectric material performance. In this paper, the effects of multiple piezoelectric elements on the generation of electrical energy and output power are studied. In the case of constant external load, the number of the piezoelectric units does not necessarily produce more energy. When the same multi piezoelectric units work together, if the stress state of the piezoelectric units is different, the total output energy affected by the connection mode. For uneven stress distribution, the optimal output mode is that each of the piezoelectric units rectified before connected in parallel.