Electrical Power Generation from Electrostrictive Polymers for Autonomous Distributed Systems
Abstract
There is an ever-growing military, scientific and commercial need to establish Autonomous Distributed Systems (ADS) for studying and measuring oceanographic, atmospheric and other data in the littoral regions of the world. The long-term goal of this program is to develop an electrical power supply for these applications, that is reliable and easy to operate, has a long maintenance-free operating life, and is as low cost as possible. An ideal system for meeting these goals is to have a power generation system that directly converts the mechanical energy in waves and currents into electricity. This electrical energy, scavenged from the ocean environment, can then be used to directly power or to recharge the batteries of the components in the ADS. The successful completion of the program will provide remote electric power generating equipment for water based military and civilian applications having capacities of a few watts to hundreds of kW. Based on unique piezoelectric and electrostrictive polymers, the generators require no fuel and produce no emissions. Battery recharging stations for autonomous underwater vehicles and undersea sensor networks will have their mission duration capability extended for years. Long lived oceanographic data collection systems will be possible for weather prediction and environmental monitoring. The program will focus in detail on electrostrictive device fabrication techniques for high reliability operation under large mechanical stress in high voltage, high power electronic circuits. It is expected that the electrostrictive polyurethane generator will have low mechanical and electrical losses and that this will result in the electrostrictive generator having a mechanical to electrical energy conversion efficiency in the range 50% to 75%, i.e., two to three times greater than that presently achievable with a piezoelectric PVDF generator.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA569424
Entities
People
- George W. Taylor