Electromechanical modeling of energy harvesting for FRP composite structures coupled with piezoelectric transducers

Supplanting of metals by composites is on the rise for the last three decades in the aerospace, marine and automotive industry following the trend of electrification and indigenous design approaches. In parallel, piezoelectric insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(PZT); sensors and energy harvesters have gained significant attention due to their applicability and efficacy for microscale power generation systems. From a new perspective, embedding PZT sensors into composite structures will be beneficial in many aspects. Condition monitoring can be performed by using the sensing capability of PZTs while vibration can be controlled by means of its excitation capability. Besides, energy harvesting can be employed due to the mechanical forces exerted on the coupled structure. It is critical to create an accurate numerical modeling of electromechanical coupling for the investigation of efficiency of PZT sensors. In this paper, electromechanical modeling of a Fiber Reinforced Polymer insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(FRP); composite structure with an embedded PZT patch is presented and validated with an experimental setup. Afterwards, the energy harvesting capability of a PZT patch embedded in the FRP structure is investigated.