Hybridizing linear and nonlinear couplings for constructing two‐degree‐of‐freedom electromagnetic energy harvesters

Author(s):  
Kangqi Fan ◽  
Geng Liang ◽  
Yiwei Zhang ◽  
Qinxue Tan
Electronics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 1526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gang Tang ◽  
Fang Cheng ◽  
Xin Hu ◽  
Bo Huang ◽  
Bin Xu ◽  
...  

With the continual increasing application requirements of broadband vibration energy harvesters (VEHs), many attempts have been made to broaden the bandwidth. As compared to adopted only a single approach, integration of multi-approaches can further widen the operating bandwidth. Here, a novel two-degree-of-freedom cantilever-based vibration triboelectric nanogenerator is proposed to obtain high operating bandwidth by integrating multimodal harvesting technique and inherent nonlinearity broadening behavior due to vibration contact between triboelectric surfaces. A wide operating bandwidth of 32.9 Hz is observed even at a low acceleration of 0.6 g. Meanwhile, the peak output voltage is 18.8 V at the primary resonant frequency of 23 Hz and 1 g, while the output voltage is 14.9 V at the secondary frequency of 75 Hz and 2.5 g. Under the frequencies of these two modes at 1 g, maximum peak power of 43.08 μW and 12.5 μW are achieved, respectively. Additionally, the fabricated device shows good stability, reaching and maintaining its voltage at 8 V when tested on a vacuum compression pump. The experimental results demonstrate the device has the ability to harvest energy from a wide range of low-frequency (<100 Hz) vibrations and has broad application prospects in self-powered electronic devices and systems.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Masood Ahmad ◽  
Farid Ullah Khan

This paper presents an electromagnetic energy harvester to extract low frequency and low acceleration vibration energy available in a bridge environment. The developed harvester is a multi-mode oscillator with dual electromagnetic transduction mechanisms. The harvester consists of two cantilever beams. The first cantilever beam is split into two equal pieces along its length and the second beam placed in between them coming back to the fixed end and attached at outer end to the first beam. This way instead of a long conventional cantilever beam a compact harvester is fabricated. Two magnets as proof masses are attached to each free end of the beam making it a two degree of freedom system (2-DOF). The magnets are positioned to oscillate inside hand wound coils during operation. An analytical model was developed and COMSOL multiphysics was used to simulate the mode shapes of the harvester. The mathematical model was simulated for open circuit voltage in MATLAB and showed closely matching results with the experimental values. The harvester is characterized in lab for its performance under sinusoidal vibrations at low frequency (3 Hz–15 Hz) and low acceleration (0.01–0.09 g) levels. The 2-DOF harvester has two resonant frequencies of 4.4 Hz and 5.5 Hz and a volume of 333 cm3. It produces maximum voltage of 0.6 V at first resonance on coil-1 and maximum voltage of 1.2 V on coil-2 at second resonance at 0.09 g. At acceleration of 0.09 g the harvester produced 2.51 mW at first resonant frequency and 10.7 mW at second resonance. Moreover, the AC output voltage of the harvester is rectified to DC voltage by a three-stage Cockcroft-Walton multiplier type circuit. The DC power output at 0.05 g was 0.939 mW at first resonance and 0.956 mW at second resonance while maximum voltages of 5.4 V on coil-1 and 4 V on coil-2 were produced.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (19) ◽  
pp. 5456
Author(s):  
Tra Nguyen Phan ◽  
Sebastian Bader ◽  
Bengt Oelmann

The introduction of nonlinearities into energy harvesting in order to improve the performance of linear harvesters has attracted a lot of research attention recently. The potential benefits of nonlinear harvesters have been evaluated under sinusoidal or random excitation. In this paper, the performances of electromagnetic energy harvesters with linear and nonlinear springs are investigated under real vibration data. Compared to previous studies, the parameters of linear and nonlinear harvesters used in this paper are more realistic and fair for comparison since they are extracted from existing devices and restricted to similar sizes and configurations. The simulation results showed that the nonlinear harvester did not generate higher power levels than its linear counterpart regardless of the excitation category. Additionally, the effects of nonlinearities were only available under a high level of acceleration. The paper also points out some design concerns when harvesters are subjected to real vibrations.


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