Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have attracted much attention as energy harvesting and sensor devices. Compared with experimental means, theoretical analysis is of low cost and time-saving for behavior prediction and structural optimization and is more powerful for understanding the working mechanism of TENGs. In this article, the theoretical system for performance simulation of TENGs has been reviewed systematically. The parallel-plate capacitor model, the distance-dependent electric field (DDEF) model, figures of merit (FOMs), and multi-parameter analysis are introduced. The parallel-plate capacitor model is the most fundamental model of TENGs, which is used to simulate the output of TENGs with planar configurations. For non-planar TENGs, the DDEF model is proposed, according to which the electric field is assumed to be distance-dependent rather than being uniform throughout the space. Further, to realize the standardization of TENGs, a series of FOMs are proposed as the standardized evaluation tools for TENGs’ output performance, which are used to reflect the influence of device parameters on the output from different aspects. Lastly, the multi-parameter analysis is introduced to consider the impact of multiple parameters on the output of TENGs simultaneously. These theories constitute the theoretical simulation system of TENGs, which could be used to guide the experimental work on TENGs and boost device optimization in commercial manufacturing.

Under the trend of the rapid development of the internet of things (IoT), sensing for dynamic behaviors is widely needed in many fields such as traffic management, industrial production, medical treatment, building health monitoring, etc. Due to the feature of power supply independence and excellent working performance under a low-frequency environment, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) as sensors are attracting more and more attention. In this paper, a comprehensive review focusing on the recent advance of TENGs as sensors for dynamic behaviors is conducted. The structure and material are two major factors affecting the performance of sensors. Different structure designs are proposed to make the sensor suitable for different sensing occasions and improve the working performance of the sensors. As for materials, new materials with stronger abilities to gain or lose electrons are fabricated to obtain higher surface charge density. Improving the surface roughness of material by surface engineering techniques is another strategy to improve the output performance of TENG. Based on the advancement of TENG structures and materials, plenty of applications of TENG-based sensors have been developed such as city traffic management, human–computer interaction, health monitoring of infrastructure, etc. It is believed that TENG-based sensors will be gradually commercialized and become the mainstream sensors for dynamic sensing.

To propose a seismic response calculation model for eccentrically compressed steel piers that can consider the local instability effect and horizontal bidirectional earthquake actions, in-plane and out-of-plane pseudo-static numerical simulation and bidirectional seismic response analysis are performed to study the applicability of the improved fiber model. The comparison results with the refined hybrid-element model show that the improved fiber model can accurately simulate the hysteretic performance of eccentrically compressed steel piers in the in-plane or out-of-plane directions and can be used to calculate the structural seismic requirements under the bidirectional action of rarely met earthquakes.