Piezoelectric energy harvesting: application to data center monitoring

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report the study of vibration energy harvesting from a data center (DC) mainframe computer to power nodes of a wireless sensors network (WSN are used to improve the energy efficiency of a DC). Design/methodology/approach – The piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (VEH) has been designed using an electromechanical analytical model. The VEH is composed of a three-layer cantilever beam with a tip mass. A vibration map (amplitude and acceleration) is presented and the authors show that the optimum frequency is around 90 Hz with maximum amplitude of 1 μm and maximum acceleration of 0.6 m/s2. Modeling results and experimental measurements using an electromagnetic shaker to apply vibrations concord. Findings – The VEH delivers a maximum power of 31 μW on a DC mainframe computer and 2.3 mW at 1g on a test rack. It allows us to use a storage capacitance to successfully power a wireless sensor node for measuring temperature. This paper has been carried out in cooperatio...