Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

Harvesting raindrop energy: theory

Romain Guigon1, Jean-Jacques Chaillout, Thomas Jager and Ghislain Despesse

Show affiliations


At present, the energy autonomy of a microsystem is limited by the lifespan of the battery. Hence the development of an energy harvesting concept, whereby the energy needed to power the sensor is taken from the operating environment. However, there is no single solution suitable for all types of environment. In this paper, we look at a still unexploited source of energy: rain. Our system recovers the vibration energy from a piezoelectric flexible structure impacted by a water drop. This paper describes in detail the theoretical study undertaken to optimize the mechanical system.


PACS

77.65.-j Piezoelectricity and electromechanical effects

62.20.F- Deformation and plasticity

81.40.Lm Deformation, plasticity, and creep

77.84.Jd Polymers; organic compounds

Subjects

Soft matter, liquids and polymers

Condensed matter: electrical, magnetic and optical

Condensed matter: structural, mechanical & thermal

Dates

Issue 1 (February 2008)

Received 11 April 2007, in final form 28 September 2007

Published 11 January 2008



  1. Harvesting raindrop energy: theory

    Romain Guigon et al 2008 Smart Mater. Struct. 17 015038

  2. Ring formation of focused half-cycle terahertz pulses

    Rakchanok Rungsawang et al 2003 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 36 229

  3. Phase-sensitive high-speed THz imaging

    Toshiaki Hattori et al 2004 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 37 770

  4. The dynamics of polymerized carbon nanotubes in semiconductor polymer electronics and electro-mechanical sensing

    Sandeep V Anand and D Roy Mahapatra 2009 Nanotechnology 20 145707

  5. On global solutions for the Constantin–Lax–Majda equation with a generalized viscosity term

    Takashi Sakajo 2003 Nonlinearity 16 1319

  6. Readily integrated, electrically controlled microvalves

    W H Song et al 2008 J. Micromech. Microeng. 18 045009

  7. The cosmic ray energy spectrum above 4*1017 eV as measured by the Haverah Park array

    M A Lawrence et al 1991 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 17 733

  8. Energy spectrum of primary cosmic rays above 1017.0 eV determined from extensive air shower experiments at Akeno

    M Nagano et al 1992 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 18 423

  9. Clock synchronization by remote detection of correlated photon pairs

    Caleb Ho et al 2009 New J. Phys. 11 045011

  10. Limits of renormalizable polynomials

    Hiroyuki Inou 2006 Nonlinearity 19 1769

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.