Determination of maximum power transfer conditions of bimorph piezoelectric energy harvesters

In this paper, a method to find the maximum power transfer conditions in bimorph piezoelectric-based harvesters is proposed. Explicitly, we derive a closed form expression that relates the load resistance to the mechanical parameters describing the bimorph based on the electromechanical, single degree of freedom, analogy. Further, by taking into account the intrinsic capacitance of the piezoelectric harvester, a more descriptive expression of the resonant frequency in piezoelectric bimorphs was derived. In interest of impartiality, we apply the proposed philosophy on previously published experimental results and compare it with other reported hypotheses. It was found that the proposed method was able to predict the actual optimum load resistance more accurately than other methods reported in the literature. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.