Recently, vibration energy harvesting has been seen as a viable energy source to provide for our energy dependent society. Researchers have studied systems ranging from civil structures like bridges to biomechanical systems including human motion as potential sources of vibration energy. In this work, a bench-top system of a piecewise-linear (PWL) nonlinear vibration harvester is studied. A similar idealized model of the harvester was previously looked at numerically, and in this work the method is adjusted to handle physical systems to construct a realistic harvester design. With the physically realizable harvester design, the resonant frequency of the system is able to be tuned by changing the gap size between the oscillator and mechanical stopper, ensuring optimal performance over a broad frequency range. Current nonlinear harvester designs show decreased performance at certain excitation conditions, but this design overcomes these issues while also still maintaining the performance of a linear harvester at resonance. In this investigation, the system is tested at various excitation conditions and gap sizes. The computational response of the resonance behavior of the PWL system is validated against the experiments. Additionally, the electromechanical response is also validated with the experiments by comparing the output power generated from the experiments with the computational prediction.
Characterization of Real-world Vibration Sources and Application to Nonlinear Vibration Energy Harvesters
Abstract A tremendous amount of research has been performed on the design and analysis of vibration energy harvester architectures with the goal of optimizing power output. Often, little attention is given to the actual characteristics of common vibrations from which energy is harvested. In order to shed light on the characteristics of common ambient vibration, data representing 333 vibration signals were downloaded from the NiPS Laboratory “Real Vibration” database, processed, and categorized according to the source of the signal (e. g. vehicle, machine, etc.), the number of dominant frequencies, the nature of the dominant frequencies (e. g. stationary, band-limited noise, etc.), and other metrics. By categorizing signals in this way, the set of idealized vibration inputs (i. e. single stationary frequency, Gaussian white noise, etc.) commonly assumed for harvester input can be corroborated and refined. Furthermore, some heretofore overlooked vibration input types are given motivation for investigation. The classification determined that, of the set of signals used in the study, 64 % of the animal source signals are best described with nonstationary dominant frequencies, 58 % of machine source signals are best described with stationary frequencies, and vehicle source signals are poorly described by any one signal type used in the classification. Nonlinear harvesters with a cubic stiffness term have received extensive attention in the scholarly literature; a numerical simulation and optimization procedure were performed using several representative signals as vibration inputs to determine the prevalence with which such a nonlinear harvester architecture might provide improvement to power output. The analysis indicated that a nonlinear harvester architecture may prove beneficial in increasing power output over a linear counterpart if the signal contains a single, dominant frequency that is not stationary in time, as evidenced by a 14 % increase in harvester power output when employing an architecture with a nonlinear cubic stiffness function. Other studies have indicated that nonlinear architectures may be beneficial for signals with nonstationary frequencies or filtered noise. 53 % of the all characterized signals fall into categories that could potentially benefit from a nonlinear oscillator architecture.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1342070
- PAR ID:
- 10134628
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Energy Harvesting and Systems
- Volume:
- 4
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2329-8774
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 67 to 76
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Vibration energy is becoming a significant alternative solution for energy generation. Recently, a great deal of research has been conducted on how to harvest energy from vibration sources ranging from ocean waves to human motion to microsystems. In this paper, a theoretical model of a piecewise-linear (PWL) nonlinear vibration harvester that has potential applications in variety of fields is proposed and numerically investigated. This new technique enables automatic frequency tunability in the energy harvester by controlling the gap size in the PWL oscillator so that it is able to adapt to changes in excitations. To optimize the performance of the proposed system, a control method combining the response prediction, signal measurement and gap adjustment mechanism is proposed in this paper. This new energy harvester not only overcomes the limitation of traditional linear energy harvesters that can only provide the maximum power generation efficiency over a narrow frequency range but also improves the performance of current nonlinear energy harvesters that are not as efficient as linear energy harvesters at resonance. The proposed system is demonstrated in several case studies to illustrate its effectiveness for a number of different excitations.more » « less
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Abstract Internet of Things (IoT) is driving the development of new generation of sensors, communication components, and power sources. Ideally, IoT sensors and communication components are expected to be powered by sustainable energy source freely available in the environment. Here, a breakthrough in this direction is provided by demonstrating high output power energy harvesting from very low amplitude stray magnetic fields, which exist everywhere, through magnetoelectric (ME) coupled magneto‐mechano‐electric (MME) energy conversion. ME coupled MME harvester comprised of multiple layers of amorphous magnetostrictive material, piezoelectric macrofiber composite, and magnetic tip mass, interacts with an external magnetic field to generate electrical energy. Comprehensive experimental investigation and a theoretical model reveal that both the magnetic torque generated through magnetic loading and amplification of magneto‐mechanical vibration by ME coupling contributes toward the generation of high electrical power from the stray magnetic field around power cables of common home appliances. The generated electrical power from the harvester is sufficient for operating microsensors (gyro, temperature, and humidity sensing) and wireless data transmission systems. These results will facilitate the deployment of IoT devices in emerging intelligent infrastructures.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1515/ehs-2016-0021
