Energy Harvesting for Lightweight Design by Means of Ferroelectret Transmission Mechanisms Arranged in Clusters

Aircraft traffic causes a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Since modern aircrafts are highly electrified, the total weight is affected by cables within the components. Piezoelectric energy harvesting appears to be a reasonable option for reducing cables in certain parts of the aircraft and hence reducing fuel consumption. The proposed work covers energy harvesting in lightweight design with transmission mechanisms using so-called ferroelectrets. The energy harvester (EH) design is motivated by a strain-excitation in an aircraft wing caused by a quasi-stationary dynamic pressure. Ferroelectrets are piezoelectric polymers that show a higher ecological compatibility and a much higher structural flexibility than piezoceramics. Furthermore they provide charge constants in the same order of magnitude as piezoceramics. As a novelty compared to previous studies the energy harvesters are arranged in a cluster in the concept presented herein to increase the power output within a certain area. A central research question is, if and to what extent energy harvesting is possible using a cluster of ferroelectret EHs without and with additional seismic masses to increase the power output and the power output per total cluster mass. This question is answered with the help of a numerical simulation of a modally reduced finite element beam structure subject to a force excitation. The applied cluster is simulated using simplified, yet validated EH models. They are coupled to the structure using only a set of node numbers. In this way the suitability of the ferroelectret transmission mechanisms as vibroacoustic metamaterials for energy harvesting in aircrafts is estimated as the final result of the work.