abstract: Technological advances in low power wearable electronics and energy optimization techniques make motion energy harvesting a viable energy source. However, it has not been widely adopted due to bulky energy harvester designs that are uncomfortable to wear. This work addresses this problem by analyzing the feasibility of powering low wearable power devices using piezoelectric energy generated at the human knee. We start with a novel mathematical model for estimating the power generated from human knee joint movements. This thesis’s major contribution is to analyze the feasibility of human motion energy harvesting and validating this analytical model using a commercially available piezoelectric module. To this end, we implemented an experimental setup that replicates a human knee. Then, we performed experiments at different excitation frequencies and amplitudes with two commercially available Macro Fiber Composite (MFC) modules. These experimental results are used to validate the analytical model and predict the energy harvested as a function of the number of steps taken in a day. The model estimates that 13μWcan be generated on an average while walking with a 4.8% modeling error. The obtained results show that piezoelectricity is indeed a viable approach for powering low-power wearable devices. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2020

This work is dedicated to principles of energy harvesting or scavenging from free energy around us. Energy harvesting principles are described in the first part. Following chapter is devoted to description of piezoelectricity and piezoelectric materials. Next part researches already reported results on piezoelectric energy harvesters. Following chapter shows simulations on designed structures in ANSYS® Workbench. Next the fabrication of the structures is described. Measurement are made regarding to maximum generated power.

This thesis focuses on simulation modelling of a piezoelectric MEMS filter, which may be used as a part of cochlear implant. A model of this filter is created in the programme ANSYS. A research on experimental cochlear implants and materials suitable for this application is also included.

Les équipementiers automobiles d’organes à hautes exigences sécuritaires travaillent sans cesse sur l’amélioration de la sûreté de fonctionnement de leurs systèmes et préparent leur insertion dans l’air du véhicule autonome. Dans ce cadre, nous avons travaillé sur la conception et le développement d’un capteur de force pour la direction à assistance électrique (DAE) avec le défi de proposer une solution sans fil, facile à fabriquer et à intégrer au système. Dans cette thèse, des travaux de modélisation et d’expérimentation ont porté principalement sur deux aspects : le capteur de force et son alimentation sans fil. Pour la mesure de force, une solution basée sur l'utilisation d'un matériau piézoélectrique a été proposée. L’utilisation d’un tel matériau pour la mesure de la composante dynamique de la force est largement répandu, cependant la mesure statique reste extrêmement réduite aux applications MEMS (mesure de pression). La technique repose sur l’onde acoustique de volume (Bulk Acoustic Wave). Un échantillon piézoélectrique inséré dans une structure, soumis à une force voit sa fréquence de résonance varier. Des travaux de modélisation analytique, éléments finis et multi-échelle ainsi que de l’expérimentation ont permis de comprendre les phénomènes physiques mis en jeux dans ce type de transducteur et de proposer des orientations pour la conception du transducteur de force optimal. Un démonstrateur a été mis en place permettant la mesure d’une force statique maximale de 1500 N. L'alimentation sans fil du capteur est assurée par la technique du couplage magnétique résonant. Vu le caractère conducteur et ferromagnétique de l’environnement du système de direction, une approche de modélisation basée sur la méthode des éléments finis et la méthode des constantes localisées a été mise en place afin d’étudier le comportement d’une telle technique dans cet environnement. Par la suite, une conception a été proposée et un prototype a été réalisé. Des mesures expérimentales ont montré que la conception répond au cahier des charges imposé par l’entreprise. / Original equipment manufacturer for automotive components with high safety requirements are continually working to improve the system safety and prepare their integration to the driverless car. Within this context, we worked on the design and development of a force sensor for the electric power steering (EPS) system with the challenge of providing a wireless solution, easy to manufacture and to integrate to the system. In this thesis, modeling and experimental activities have focused mainly on two aspects: the force sensor and its wireless power supply system. For force measurement, a solution based on piezoelectric material was proposed. The use of such material to measure the dynamic component of the force is widespread; however, static force measurement remains extremely limited to MEMS applications (pressure measurement). The technic utilizes the bulk acoustic wave (BAW). The resonance frequency of a piezoelectric specimen positioned within a mechanical structure varies with an externally applied force. Analytic modeling activities, finite element method based and multi-scale approach with experimentation activities allow the understanding of the physical mechanisms behind the observed behavior of the transducer and to propose guidance for optimal design of the force transducer. A demonstrator was set up and showed a static force measurement capability up to 1500N.The wireless power supply is achieved by the resonant magnetic coupling technique. In order to analyze the effect of the environment of the electric power steering system characterized by conductive and ferromagnetic parts, a modeling approach based on the finite element method and the lumped-element method was adopted. Afterwards, a design was proposed and a prototype was carried out. The experimental measurement shows that the design meets the company requirements.

Distributed modal filters based on piezoelectric polymer have especially become popular in the field of active vibration control to reduce the problem of spillover. While distributed modal filters for one-dimensional structures can be found analytically based on the orthogonality between the mode shapes, the design for two-dimensional structures is not straightforward. It requires a continuous gain variation in two dimensions, which is not realizable from the current manufacturing point of view. In this thesis, a structural optimization problem is considered to approximate distributed modal sensors for two-dimensional plate structures, where the thickness is constant but the polarization can switch between positive and negative. The problem is solved through an explicit parametric level set method. In this framework, the boundary of a domain is represented implicitly by the zero isoline of a level set function. This allows simultaneous shape and topology changes. The level set function is approximated by a linear combination of Gaussian radial basis functions. As a result, the structural optimization problem can be directly posed in terms of the parameters of the approximation. This allows to apply standard optimization methods and bypasses the numerical drawbacks, such as reinitialization, velocity extension and regularization, which are associated with the numerical solution of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation in conventional methods.Since the level set method based on the shape derivative formally only allows shape but not topology transformation, the optimization problem is firstly tackled with a derivative-free optimization algorithm. It is shown that the approach is able to find approximate modal sensor designs with only few design variables. However, this approach becomes unsuitable as soon as the number of optimization variables is growing. Therefore, a sensitivity-based optimization approach is being applied, based on the parametric shape derivative which is with respect to the parameters of the radial basis functions. Although the shape derivatives does not exist at points where the topology changes, it is demonstrated that an optimization routine based on a SQP solver is able to perform topological changes during the optimization and finds optimal designs even from poor initial designs. In order to include the sensors' distribution as design variable, the parametric level set approach is extended to multiple level sets. It turns out that, despite the increased design space, optimal solutions always converge to full-material polarization designs. Numerical examples are provided for a simply supported as well as a cantilever square plate. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur et technologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La polyvalence de la technique de track-etching a permis d’étudier plus avant l’effet piezoélectrique direct et indirect d’un film polarisé en poly(fluorure de vinylidène) PVDF en créant des membranes nanostructurées hybrides de nanofils de nickel (Ni NWs)/PVDF. Les propriétés magnétiques du nanofil de nickel, telle que la magnétorésistance anisotrope (AMR), ont été exploitées afin d’étudier la réponse de l’aimantation à la déformation mécanique de la matrice PVDF. En particulier, les déformations ont été induites soit par contrainte thermo-mécanique, soit par contrainte électromécanique (effet piezoélectrique indirect). La sensibilité d’un nanofil unique a permis de déterminer l’amplitude et la direction de la contrainte mécanique exercée à l’échelle nanométrique par la matrice PVDF. La résistance exceptionnelle de la réponse piezoélectrique directe du film PVDF polarisé à l’irradiation, telle que l’irradiation aux ions-lourds accélérés et aux électrons (domaine de doses < 100kGy) a été observée. Mis à part la conservation de la réponse piezoélectrique, les défauts engendrés par l’irradiation dans ce domaine de dose (scissions de chaines, augmentation de phase crystalline, réticulations) ont eu un impact significatif sur la structure du matériau polymère. L’ensemble de ces défauts, les uns prépondérants en-dessous de la dose-gel ( 10kGy), les autres au-dessus, forme une compensation d’effets antagonistes qui mènent à une réponse piezoélectrique globalement inchangée. Stimulé par la grande résistance du PVDF à l’irradiation en termes de réponse piezoélectrique, l’idée a été d’exploiter, en vue d’une application dans la récupération d’énergie, le réseau de nanofils de nickel inclus dans la membrane en PVDF polarisé pour étudier l’influence des nanofils de nickel sur la l’efficacité piezoélectrique. La présence du réseau de nanofils de nickel mène à un accroissement non négligeable de l’efficacité piezoélectrique. Reliée à la présence des nanofils, une augmentation de la permittivité diélectrique dans le PVDF nanostructuré a également été enregistrée. Une polarisation interfaciale entre les nanofils de nickel et la matrice PVDF pourrait expliquer cette valeur accrue par rapport au PVDF nanoporeux sans nanofils. / The versatility of the track-etching technique has allowed to investigate deeper the direct and inverse piezoelectric effect of a polarized Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) film in building nanostructured hybrid Nickel nanowires (Ni NWs)/PVDF membrane. The magnetic properties of the Ni NW, such as anisotropic magneto resistance (AMR), are exploited to investigate the response of the magnetization to a mechanical deformation of the PVDF matrix. In particular, the deformations were induced either by thermo-mechanical or an electro-mechanical (inverse piezoelectric effect) stress. The sensitivity of the single NW has allowed to determine the amplitude and direction of a mechanical stress exerted at the nano-scale by the PVDF matrix. The outstanding resistance of the direct piezoelectric response of polarized PVDF film to radiation, such as SHI and e-beam, (doses range < 100kGy) was reported. Beyond the conservation of the piezoelectric response, in this dose range, irradiation defects (chain scissions, increase of the crystalline -phase, crosslinking) had a significative impact on the polymer material. All these defects, ones predominant above the gel dose (herein 10 kGy), and the other ones below, compensate their antagonistic effects towards the globally unchanged piezoelectric responses. Motivated by the high radiation resistance of the PVDF in terms of piezoelectric response, the idea was to exploit Ni NWs array embedded in the polarized PVDF membrane to study the influence of the Ni NWs on the piezoelectric response in view of harvesting energy application. The presence of the Ni NWs array leads a non-negligible increase of the piezoelectric efficiency. Related to the presence of the NWs, an increase of the dielectric permittivity in the nanostructured PVDF was also reported. An interfacial polarization between the Ni NWs and the PVDF matrix could explain the higher efficiency value respect to nanoporous PVDF, without NWs.

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Disordered multicomponent nitride thin film can be used for various applications. The focus of this Licentiate Thesis lies on the theoretical study of piezoelectric properties, phase stability and surface diffusion in multifunctional hard coating nitrides using density functional theory (DFT). Piezoelectric thin films show great promise for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), such as surface acoustic wave resonators or energy harvesters. One of the main benefits of nitride based piezoelectric devices is the much higher thermal stability compared to the commonly used lead zirconate titanate (PZT) based materials. This makes the nitride based material more suitable for application in, e.g., jet engines. The discovery that alloying AlN with ScN can increase the piezoelectric response more than 500% due to a phase competition between the wurtzite phase in AlN and the hexagonal phase in ScN, provides a fundamental basis for constructing highly responsive piezoelectric thin films. This approach was utilized on the neighboring nitride binaries, where ScN or YN was alloyed with AlN, GaN, or InN. It established the general role of volume matching the binaries to easily achieve a structural instability in order to obtain a maximum increase of the piezoelectric response. For Sc0.5Ga0.5N this increase is more than 900%, compared to GaN. Y1-xInxN is, however, the most promising alloy with the highest resulting piezoelectric response seconded only by Sc0.5Al0.5N. Phase stability and lattice parameters (stress-strain states) of the Y1-xAlxN alloy have been calculated in combination with experimental synthesis. Hard protective coatings based on nitride thin films have been used in industrial applications for a long time. Two of the most successful coatings are TiN and the metastable Ti1-xAlxN. Although these two materials have been extensively investigated both experimentally and theoretically, at the atomic level little is known about Ti1-xAlxN diffusion properties. This is in large part due to problems with configurational disorder in the alloy, because Ti and Al atoms are placed randomly at cation positions in the lattice, considerably increasing the complexity of the problem. To deal with this issues, we have used special quasi-random structure (SQS) models, as well as studying dilute concentrations of Al. One of the most important mechanisms related to the growth of Ti1-xAlxN is surface diffusion. Because Ti1-xAlxN is a metastable material it has to be grown as a thin film with methods such as physical vapor deposition (PVD), in which surface diffusion plays a pivotal role in determining the microstructure evolution of the film. In this work, the surface energetics and mobility of Ti and Al adatoms on a disordered Ti0.5Al0.5N(001) surface are studied. Also the effects on the adatom energetics of Ti, Al, and N by the substitution of one Ti with an Al surface atom in TiN(001), TiN(011), and TiN(111) surfaces is studied. This provides an indepth atomistic understanding of how the energetics behind surface diffusion changes as TiN transitions into Ti0.5Al0.5N. The investigations revealed many interesting results. i) That Ti adatom mobilities are dramatically reduced on the TiN and Ti0.5Al0.5N(001) surfaces while Al adatoms are largely unaffected. ii) The reverse effect is found on the TiN(111) surface, Al adatom migration is reduced while Ti adatom migration is unaffected. iii) The magnetic spin polarization of Ti adatoms is shown to have an important effect on binding energies and diffusion path, e.g., the adsorption energy at bulk sites is increased by 0.14 eV.

<p>Throughout the last century, energetic materials have been subject to drop weight impact tests to measure their sensitivity, with which material’s properties are correlated to their impact sensitivity. However, there is little research that focuses on utilizing the piezoelectric effect to control the sensitivity of energetics. Piezoelectricity is the effect of an electric charge accumulating due to an applied mechanical stress. It is demonstrated in previous work that fluoropolymers such as polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) contribute to higher sensitivity in nanocomposite energetic materials through their piezoelectric properties. This property can be amplified in fluoropolymers in the beta (β) phase through polling methods and can be quantitatively analyzed by the piezoelectric coefficient (d₃₃). This research is focused on characterizing the effect of piezoelectricity on the impact sensitivity and ignition delay of nAl/PVDF-TrFE composites through the presence of varied d₃₃ coefficients. The composite films were fabricated with the tape casting method with 85 μm thickness. The content of nAl was limited to 10 wt% in order to sustain feasible poling. Poling was achieved without any further manipulation of the composition so that a direct comparison could be observed. The magnitude of effect that the piezoelectric coefficient has on an energetic composite was discovered. The samples that had no d₃₃ value were 8% less sensitive and experienced longer ignition delay times compared to the poled samples. This work proved that impact sensitivity and ignition delay can be manipulated through poling methods. This concept of controlling the sensitivity of energetic materials can be used to develop more customizable composites in the future.</p>

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