Among the available solutions to harvest energy from vibrating and nonvibrating sources, piezoelectric bimorphs seem to be a suitable choice because of their capability to directly convert applied strain energy into usable electric power. In this work, we review the techniques adopted to increase the specific power per unit of volume of piezoelectric scavengers. The design goal is to obtain a uniform stress distribution on the piezoelectric layers, in order to exploit the electromechanical

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... y conversion capability of the whole material. Two approaches are then followed to improve the performance: by designing an optimal shape of the device or by imposing an optimal bending deflection. For both strategies, results from numerical models and experimental tests are compared. 