scholarly journals Energy Harvesting Backpacks for Human Load Carriage: Modelling and Performance Evaluation

Electronics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1061
Author(s):  
Ledeng Huang ◽  
Ruishi Wang ◽  
Zhenhua Yang ◽  
Longhan Xie

In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for portable power sources as people are required to carry more equipment for occupational, military, or recreational purposes. The energy harvesting backpack that moves relative to the human body, could capture kinetic energy from human walking and convert vertical oscillation into the rotational motion of the generators to generate electricity. In our previous work, a light-weight tube-like energy harvester (TL harvester) and a traditional frequency-tuneable backpack-based energy harvester (FT harvester) were proposed. In this paper, we discuss the power generation performance of the two types of energy harvesters and the energy performance of human loaded walking, while carrying energy harvesting backpacks, based on two different spring-mass-damper models. Testing revealed that the electrical power in the experiments showed similar trends to the simulation results, but the calculated electrical power and the net metabolic power were higher than that of the experiments. Moreover, the total cost of harvesting (TCOH), defined as additional metabolic power in watt required to generate 1 W of electrical power, could be negative, which indicated that there is a chance to generate 6.11 W of electricity without increasing the metabolic cost while carrying energy harvesting backpacks.

Author(s):  
Swapnil Arawade ◽  
Ganesh Korwar

In this literature different biomechanical energy harvesters are reviewed. In the past years a lot of work reported on energy harvesting. Energy crisis is the main issue in front of human so it is essential to find new promising ways to fulfil the need of electricity. Wearable smart devices and small sensor require low electrical power so to power them biomechanical energy harvesters comes into picture. The innovative work done by the researchers in developing new biomechanical energy harvester is discussed and summarized.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Martin ◽  
Michael Shepertycky ◽  
Yan-Fei Liu ◽  
Qingguo Li

Biomechanical energy harvesters (BMEHs) have shown that useable amounts of electricity can be generated from daily movement. Where access to an electrical power grid is limited, BMEHs are a viable alternative to accommodate energy requirements for portable electronics. In this paper, we present the detailed design and dynamic model of a lower limb-driven energy harvester that predicts the device output and the load on the user. Comparing with existing harvester models, the novelty of the proposed model is that it incorporates the energy required for useful electricity generation, stored inertial energy, and both mechanical and electrical losses within the device. The model is validated with the lower limb-driven energy harvester in 12 unique configurations with a combination of four different motor and three different electrical resistance combinations (3.5 Ω, 7 Ω, and 12 Ω). A case study shows that the device can generate between 3.6 and 15.5 W with an efficiency between 39.8% and 72.5%. The model was able to predict the harvester output peak voltage within 5.6 ± 3.2% error and the peak force it exerts on the user within 9.9 ± 3.4% error over a range of parameter values. The model will help to identify configurations to achieve a high harvester efficiency and provide a better understanding of how parameters affect both the timing and magnitude of the load felt by the user.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 182021
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Martin ◽  
Qingguo Li

Biomechanical energy harvesters generate electricity, from human movement, to power portable electronics. We developed an energy harvesting module to be used in conjunction with a load carriage device that allows carried mass in a backpack to oscillate in the medial–lateral (M–L) direction. The energy harvesting module was designed to tune M–L oscillations of the carried mass to create favourable device–user interaction. We tested seven energy harvesting conditions and compared them to walking with the device when the weight was rigidly fixed to the backpack frame. For each energy harvesting condition, we changed the external load resistance: altering how much electricity was being generated and how much the carried mass would oscillate. We then correlated device behaviour to the biomechanical response of the user. The energy harvesting load carriage system generated electricity with no significant increase in the metabolic power required to walk, when compared to walking with the carried weight rigidly fixed. The device was able to generate up to 0.22 ± 0.03 W of electricity, while walking with 9 kg of carried weight. The device also reduced the interaction forces experienced by the user, in the M–L direction, compared to walking with the device when the mass was rigidly fixed.


2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 529-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alper Erturk ◽  
Jamil M. Renno ◽  
Daniel J. Inman

Cantilevered piezoelectric energy harvesters have been extensively investigated in the literature of energy harvesting. As an alternative to conventional cantilevered beams, this article presents the L-shaped beam-mass structure as a new piezoelectric energy harvester configuration. This structure can be tuned to have the first two natural frequencies relatively close to each other, resulting in the possibility of a broader band energy harvesting system. This article describes the important features of the L-shaped piezoelectric energy harvester configuration and develops a linear distributed parameter model for predicting the electromechanically coupled voltage response and displacement response of the harvester structure. After deriving the coupled distributed parameter model, a case study is presented to investigate the electrical power generation performance of the L-shaped energy harvester. A direct application of the L-shaped piezoelectric energy harvester configuration is proposed for use as landing gears in unmanned air vehicle applications and a case study is presented where the results of the L-shaped — energy harvester — landing gear are favorably compared against the published experimental results of a curved beam configuration used for the same purpose.


Author(s):  
Shun Chen ◽  
David Eager ◽  
Liya Zhao

This paper proposes a softening nonlinear aeroelastic galloping energy harvester for enhanced energy harvesting from concurrent wind flow and base vibration. Traditional linear aeroelastic energy harvesters have poor performance with quasi-periodic oscillations when the base vibration frequency deviates from the aeroelastic frequency. The softening nonlinearity in the proposed harvester alters the self-excited galloping frequency and simultaneously extends the large-amplitude base-excited oscillation to a wider frequency range, achieving frequency synchronization over a remarkably broadened bandwidth with periodic oscillations for efficient energy conversion from dual sources. A fully coupled aero-electro-mechanical model is built and validated with measurements on a devised prototype. At a wind speed of 5.5 m/s and base acceleration of 0.1 g, the proposed harvester improves the performance by widening the effective bandwidth by 300% compared to the linear counterpart without sacrificing the voltage level. The influences of nonlinearity configuration, excitation magnitude, and electromechanical coupling strength on the mechanical and electrical behavior are examined. The results of this paper form a baseline for future efficiency enhancement of energy harvesting from concurrent wind and base vibration utilizing monostable stiffness nonlinearities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 642
Author(s):  
Mauricio Bastida Romero ◽  
Sebastian Ramirez Cholula

We study the performance of an electromechanical oscillator as an energy harvester driven byfinite-bandwidth random vibrations under the influence of both a stiffness-type nonlinearity and anonlinear damping that has recently been found to be relevant in the dynamics of submicrometermechanical resonators. The device was numerically simulated and its performance assessed by meansof the net electrical power and the efficiency of the conversion of the supplied power by the noiseinto electrical power for exponentially correlated noise. We tune the parameters to achieve a goodperformance of the device for non-negligible amplitudes of the nonlinearity of the oscillator and thedamping.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 155892501300800
Author(s):  
François M. Guillot ◽  
Haskell W. Beckham ◽  
Johannes Leisen

In the past few years, the growing need for alternative power sources has generated considerable interest in the field of energy harvesting. A particularly exciting possibility within that field is the development of fabrics capable of harnessing mechanical energy and delivering electrical power to sensors and wearable devices. This study presents an evaluation of the electromechanical performance of hollow lead zirconate titanate (PZT) fibers as the basis for the construction of such fabrics. The fibers feature individual polymer claddings surrounding electrodes directly deposited onto both inside and outside ceramic surfaces. This configuration optimizes the amount of electrical energy available by placing the electrodes in direct contact with the surface of the material and by maximizing the active piezoelectric volume. Hollow fibers were electroded, encapsulated in a polymer cladding, poled and characterized in terms of their electromechanical properties. They were then glued to a vibrating cantilever beam equipped with a strain gauge, and their energy harvesting performance was measured. It was found that the fibers generated twice as much energy density as commercial state-of-the-art flexible composite sensors. Finally, the influence of the polymer cladding on the strain transmission to the fiber was evaluated. These fibers have the potential to be woven into fabrics that could harvest mechanical energy from the environment and could eventually be integrated into clothing.


2014 ◽  
Vol 953-954 ◽  
pp. 655-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guang Qing Shang ◽  
Hong Bing Wang ◽  
Chun Hua Sun

Energy harvesting system has become one of important areas of ​​research and develops rapidly. How to improve the performance of the piezoelectric vibration energy harvester is a key issue in engineering applications. There are many literature on piezoelectric energy harvesting. The paper places focus on summarizing these literature of mathematical modeling of piezoelectric energy harvesting, ranging from the linear to nonlinear, from early a single mechanical degree to piezoaeroelastic problems.


Author(s):  
Lin Dong ◽  
Frank T. Fisher

Vibration-based energy harvesting has been widely investigated to as a means to generate low levels of electrical energy for applications such as wireless sensor networks. However, due to the fact that vibration from the environment is typically random and varies with different magnitudes and frequencies, it is a challenge to implement frequency matching in order to maximize the power output of the energy harvester with a wider frequency bandwidth for applications where there is a time-dependent, varying source frequency. Possible solutions of frequency matching include widening the bandwidth of the energy harvesters themselves in order to implement frequency matching and to perform resonance-based tuning approach, the latter of which shows the most promise to implement a frequency matching design. Here three tuning strategies are discussed. First a two-dimensional resonant frequency tuning technique for the cantilever-geometry energy harvesting device which extended previous 1D tuning approaches was developed. This 2D approach could be used in applications where space constraints impact the available design space of the energy harvester. In addition, two novel resonant frequency tuning approaches (tuning via mechanical stretch and tuning via applied bias voltage, respectively) for electroactive polymer (EAP) membrane-based geometry energy harvesters was proposed, such that the resulting changes in membrane tension were used to tune the device for applications targeting variable ambient frequency environments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 87 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhaoqi Li ◽  
Qian Deng ◽  
Shengping Shen

Abstract In this work, we propose a circular membrane-based flexoelectric energy harvester. Different from previously reported nanobeams based flexoelectric energy harvesters, for the flexoelectric membrane, the polarization direction around its center is opposite in sign to that far away from the center. To avoid the cancelation of the electric output, electrodes coated to upper and lower surfaces of the flexoelectric membrane are respectively divided into two parts according to the sign of bending curvatures. Based on Hamilton’s principle and Ohm’s law, we obtain governing equations for the circular membrane-based flexoelectric energy harvester. A generalized assumed-modes method is employed for solving the system, so that the performance of the flexoelectric energy harvester can be studied in detail. We analyze the effects of the thickness h, radius r0, and their ratio on the energy harvesting performance. Specifically, we show that, by selecting appropriate h and r0, it is possible to design an energy harvester with both high energy conversion efficiency and low working frequency. At last, through numerical simulations, we further study the optimization ratio for which the electrodes should be divided.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document