Nonlinear Smart Beam Model for Energy Harvesting

In this paper, the nonlinear modeling of beam energy harvester embedded with piezoelectric transducers is presented. Starting from a multibody dynamics perspective, a fully coupled electromechanical nonlinear beam model was derived and a geometrically exact finite volume beam element, including the circuit equation is developed. In this model, the beam resultants-strain constitutive law and mass properties are obtained from a two-dimensional beam cross-sectional modeling in which the electromechanical coupling effects are included. The results are verified against numerical and experimental results reported in the literature.