A Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting System Assisted by A Piezoelectric Transducer Achieving 10-mV Cold-Startup and 82.7% Peak Efficiency

This article presents a 10mV-startup-voltage thermoelectric energy harvesting system, assisted by a piezoelectric generator (PEG) as a cold starter. It exploits the fact that when a thermoelectric energy harvesting system is implemented in a place where kinetic energy is also present, the PEG starter can provide a clock signal to start the...

A Fully Integrated Sequential Synchronized Switch Harvesting on Capacitors Rectifier Based on Split-Electrode for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

Synchronized rectifiers offer promising solutions for piezoelectric energy harvesting; however, achieving the promised energy extraction performance necessitates using either a bulky inductor or multiple large capacitors, which cannot be on-chip integrated and increase the system form factor. This article introduces a fully integrated...

A Synchronized Switch Harvesting Rectifier With Reusable Storage Capacitors for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

Synchronized ac-dc rectifiers are widely used for energy rectification in piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH), which have to employ a bulky inductor or some dedicated flying capacitors for high energy conversion efficiency. This article proposes a synchronized switch harvesting on shared capacitors (SSHSC) rectifier achieving synchronized...

Performance Optimization of SSHC Rectifiers for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

In the past decades, inductor-based synchronized switch harvesting on inductor (SSHI) rectifiers have been widely employed in many active rectification systems for piezoelectric energy harvesting. Although SSHI rectifiers achieve high energy extraction performance compared to passive full-bridge rectifier (FBR), the performance greatly...

A Self-Bias-Flip with Charge Recycle Interface Circuit with No External Energy Reservoir for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Array

This article presents a piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) interface circuit using a new self-bias-flip with the charge recycle (SBFR) technique without employing any additional energy reservoir. Traditional designs, including synchronous-switch harvesting on inductor (SSHI), synchronous-switch harvesting on capacitor (SSHC), synchronous...

Relationship Analysis and Optimisation of Space Layout to Improve the Energy Performance of Office Buildings

Architectural space layout has proven to be influential on building energy performance. However, the relationship between different space layouts and their consequent energy demands has not yet been systematically studied. This study thoroughly investigates such a relationship. In order to do so, a computational method was developed, which...

Design and assessments on a hybrid pin fin-metal foam structure towards enhancing melting heat transfer: An experimental study

Solar energy, as a kind of renewable energy, offers a large reserve to be harvested at a reasonably low cost for engineering applications. To decouple the temporal and spatial relevance of the continuous energy supply of solar energy, latent heat thermal energy storage can deal with this problem at different temperatures. Aiming to improve...

A Reconfigurable Cold-Startup SSHI Rectifier with 4X Lower Input Amplitude Requirement for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

Synchronized switch harvesting on inductor (SSHI) is an efficient active rectifier to extract energy generated from piezoelectric transducer in piezoelectric energy harvesting system. Unlike passive rectifiers, SSHI rectifiers require a power supply to drive synchronized switches. Unfortunately, there is no stable supply when the system starts...

A PV-assisted 10-mV Startup Boost Converter for Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting

This paper presents a boost converter for thermo-electric energy harvesting with photovoltaic (PV)-assisted startup. The converter employs a new two-phase startup architecture and the PV cell is used in the first phase to provide an initial high voltage for startup. This high voltage drives the boost converter to charge a startup capacitor,...

A 2-Mode Reconfigurable SSHI Rectifier with 3.2X Lower Cold-Start Requirement for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting*

Synchronized switch harvesting on inductor (SSHI) rectifier has been verified as an efficient active rectifier to harvest kinetic energy in piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) system. Compared with passive rectifiers, active rectifiers including SSHI rectifier require a stable power supply to drive switches. However, when the system starts...

A Highly Efficient Fully Integrated Active Rectifier for Ultrasonic Wireless Power Transfer

Ultrasonic wireless power transfer (WPT) has been proved to be a promising approach to power biomedical implants. To extract the energy generated from the transducer, a rectifier is typically required. Previous inductor-based rectifiers (SSHI and SECE) require a large off-chip inductor to achieve good performance, which is not desired for...

A 10-mV-Startup-Voltage Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting System With a Piezoelectric Starter

An ultra-low-startup-voltage thermoelectric energy harvesting system assisted by a piezoelectric generator (PEG) is presented in this paper. When the energy harvesting system is implemented in a place where there is mechanical vibration, the associated PEG can generate a stable clock signal and drive the boost converter to start from the cold...

Investigation of Potting Compounds on Thermal-Fatigue properties of Solder Interconnects

The objective of this article is to investigate the thermal-fatigue properties of a commercially available lead-free solder alloy (SnBiAgCu) under the use of different types of potting compounds. Solder alloys with lower silver content are expected to substitute the conventional solder alloys SAC305 (Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu). First, the tensile...

Effect of space layouts on the energy performance of office buildings in three climates

Numerous studies have shown that architectural design affects energy performance significantly. However, the effect of space layouts on building energy performance has not been fully analysed. In this paper, we aim to study the effect of space layouts on energy performance. An office building was used as the reference, and 11 layout variants...

Effects of Architectural Space Layouts on Energy Performance: A Review

As one of the most important design tasks of building design, space layout design affects the building energy performance (BEP). In order to investigate the effect, a literature review of relevant papers was performed. Ten relevant articles were found and reviewed in detail. First, a methodology for studying the effects of space layouts on BEP...

Gaps and requirements for automatic generation of space layouts with optimised energy performance

Due to the critical need for reducing carbon emissions, the demand for energy-efficient building design is urgent. Studies have shown that space layouts affect energy performance considerably. Energy performance optimisation is able to improve energy performance significantly. However, in order to apply energy performance optimisation to space...

A Review on Automatic Generation of Architectural Space Layouts with Energy Performance Optimization