Reliability Study of Power Harvesting System from Sea Waves with Piezoelectric Patches

Abstract

Conversion of sea waves mechanical energies into the electrical form of energy by means of piezoelectric materials is considered as one of the most recent methods for powering low-power electronic devices at sea. In this paper, power harvesting from sea waves by consideration of JONSWAP wave theory is investigated and the uncertainties of sea waves are studied for the first time. For this purpose, a vertical beam fixed to the seabed which the piezoelectric patches are attached to it, is considered as energy harvester and is modeled and simulated by MATLAB software. The generated power is computed by calculating the beam vibration response and the effect of piezoelectric patches on the generated power is studied by statistical analysis. Furthermore, reliability of the energy harvesting system is investigated as the possibility of failure based on violation criteria. It is resulted that the probability of failure increases by increasing the power.