The Characterisation of the harvesting capabilities of an electrostrictive polymer composite

Abstract Harvesting systems capable of transforming dusty environmental energy into electrical energy have attracted considerable interest throughout the last decade. Several research efforts have focused on the transformation of mechanical vibration into electrical energy. Most of these research activities refer to classical piezoelectric ceramic materials, but more recently piezoelectric polymer materials have also been considered. The goal of this paper has been to develop of a model capable of predicting the electrostrictive coefficient of EPCs. The model was developed by using the vibration transmission theory of a Euler–Bernoulli cantilever beam. After validating the model, at the macroscopic level, an empirical relationship was established predicting the value of the electrostrictive coefficient from the dielectric constants and the compliance coefficient of the material. The final results indicated that the dielectric constant was the crucial parameter, for the energy harvesting.