Schwarz M, Mergheim J (2026)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2026
Book Volume: 16
Article Number: 7552
Journal Issue: 15
DOI: 10.3390/app16157552
Pyropiezoelectric energy harvesting has the potential to utilize both environmental vibrations and time-dependent temperature changes to increase the amount of energy harvested compared to harvesting from only one of the two sources. So far, the investigation of such hybrid energy harvesting approaches has mainly been experimental. This makes it difficult to distinguish between their individual physical effects and complicates the optimization of such harvesters. This work presents a numerical framework for solving transient coupled pyropiezoelectric equations using the finite element method. The numerical method can be applied to simulate hybrid energy harvesters by taking into account external electrical circuits. The numerical simulations enable a targeted analysis of the contributions of mechanical, electrical and thermal effects to the harvested energy. This is illustrated by various numerical examples, such as a simple piezoelectric cuboid, a unimorph, a bimorph and a bimetallic beam with a piezoelectric patch. These are subjected to oscillating deformations and/or temperature changes. The simulations calculate the harvested energy resulting from the individual physical effects, depending on the excitation frequency, the external resistance, and the geometric configuration of the harvester. For a bimetallic beam with a piezoelectric patch, which is used as a low frequency hybrid energy harvester, a geometric optimization based on the simulation results showed a possible increase in the harvested energy of up to 386% under idealized circuit conditions compared to the initial design from the literature.
APA:
Schwarz, M., & Mergheim, J. (2026). Finite Element Analysis of Hybrid Piezo- and Pyroelectric Energy Harvesting. Applied Sciences, 16(15). https://doi.org/10.3390/app16157552
MLA:
Schwarz, Michael, and Julia Mergheim. "Finite Element Analysis of Hybrid Piezo- and Pyroelectric Energy Harvesting." Applied Sciences 16.15 (2026).
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