In the research of piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH), the previous foci were mostly on the amount of energy that can be harvested from the ambient vibration sources. Other portions of energy, e.g., the energy dissipated during the harvesting process, were seldom considered in PEH systems. Yet, the ignorance on these energies might cause some misunderstanding in the studies of energy harvesting. This paper sets up an energy flow based framework for the analysis of PEH systems. An energy flow chart is introduced to comprehensively illustrate the energy paths within the PEH system. Taking the interface circuits of standard energy harvesting (SEH) and synchronized switch harvesting on inductor (SSHI) as examples, different branches of energy flow in the PEH systems are quantitatively investigated. In the previous literature, only the harvested energy was emphasized as a function of the rectified voltage or its corresponding DC load resistance. To be more general, we show that both the harvesting energy and dissipated energy change with the rectified voltage; in addition, these two portions of energy also depend on the ratio between the rectifier voltage drop and the open circuit voltage. Three experiments are carried out with an SSHI device to measure its performances on energy harvesting, energy dissipation, and structural damping. The experimental results show good agreement with theoretical analysis. The functional relations among these branches of energy flow are found.
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