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Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Campus Access Master's Report

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MS)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Advisor 1

Ye Sun

Advisor 2

Shiyan Hu

Committee Member 1

Lucia Gauchia

Abstract

The Triboelectric Energy Generator (TEG) is a promising energy resource for various self-powered microelectronics. This report chooses a popular type of TEGs, which is the Contact-Separate Triboelectric Energy Generator (CS-TEG) and explores its optimum power performance. Firstly, it constructs a theoretical model that couples the mechanical system governing equation and electrical system governing equation for the CS-TEG. Besides, it is also a pioneer among the peers to introduce a term named 'triboelectric coupling force' in the theoretical model, which properly explains the power transfer during triboelectric charge generation. Secondly, it develops a decoupling algorithm for the coupled theoretical model and a numerical algorithm based on Euler and Backward Euler methods for the decoupled Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs). As a result, the power-related performance of the CS-TEG can be derived from the developed algorithms. Afterward, the theoretical model and the numerical algorithms are verified with the analytical results in specific cases and are verified with experimental results utilizing self-manufactured CS-TEG prototype and self-developed testing device in more general cases. The theoretical results show good accordance with both analytical and experimental results, which eventually verifies the theoretical model together with the numerical solution. Finally, the power optimization of the CS-TEG is performed through a case study to systematically illustrate how to reach an optimized power performance and how different parameters in the theoretical model would affect the power performance. With the power optimization process, the power output of the CS-TEG in the given scenario increases from 17.2 uW to 45.6 uW. The figure of merit is finally achieved at 46.5 uW/g and 57 uW/cm2.

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