scholarly journals Comprehensive Analysis of the Energy Harvesting Performance of a Fe-Ga Based Cantilever Harvester in Free Excitation and Base Excitation Mode

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (15) ◽  
pp. 3412
Author(s):  
Liu ◽  
Cong ◽  
Zhao ◽  
Ma

Vibration energy harvesting attempts to generate electricity through recycling the discarded vibration energy that is usually lost or dissipated, and represents an alternative to traditional batteries and may even lead to reliable self-powered autonomous electronic devices. Energy harvesting based on magnetostrictive materials, which takes advantage of the coupling characteristics of the Villari effect and the Faraday electromagnetic induction effect, is a recent research field of great interest. Aiming to develop a new type of magnetostrictive energy harvester using Fe-Ga alloy, which is suitable for harvesting the vibration energy from base excitations and free excitations, a Fe-Ga based cantilever harvester was proposed. The energy harvesting performance of the harvester prototype, including its resonance characteristics, open-circuit output voltage-frequency response and amplitude characteristic under base excitation, influence of external resistance, energy harvesting performance under free excitation, the function of pre-magnetization and so on was studied systematically and carefully by experiments. In terms of the volume power density, the harvester prototype without pre-magnetized magnet when in series with the optimal resistor load displays a value of 2.653 mW/cm3. The average conversion efficiency without a pre-magnetic field is about 17.7% when it is in series with a 200 resistance. The energy harvesting and converting capability can therefore be improved greatly once the Fe-Ga beam is highly pre-magnetized. The prototype successfully lit up multi-LEDs and digital display tubes, which validates the sustainable power generation capacity of the fabricated prototype.

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 408-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chase A Ray ◽  
Steven R Anton

Electronic devices are high-demand commodities in today’s world, and such devices will continue increasing in popularity. Currently, batteries are implemented to provide power to these devices; however, the need for battery replacement, their cost, and the waste associated with battery disposal present a need for advances in self-powered technology. Energy harvesting technology has great potential to alleviate the drawbacks of batteries. In this work, a novel piezoelectret foam material is investigated for low-level vibration energy harvesting. Specifically, piezoelectret foam assembled in a multilayer stack configuration is explored. Modeling and experimentation of the stack when excited in compression at low frequencies are performed to investigate piezoelectret foam for multilayer energy harvesting. An equivalent circuit model derived from the literature is used to model the piezoelectret stack. Two 20-layer prototype devices and one 40-layer prototype device are fabricated and experimentally tested via harmonic base excitation. Electromechanical frequency response functions between input acceleration and output voltage are measured experimentally. Modeling results are compared to experimental measurements to assess the fidelity of the model near resonance. Finally, energy harvesting experimentation in which the device is subject to harmonic base excitation at the fundamental natural frequency is conducted to determine the ability of the stack to successfully charge a capacitor. For a 20-layer stack excited at 0.5  g, a 100-µF capacitor is charged to 1.45 V in 15 min, and produces a peak power of 0.45 µW. A 40-layer stack is found to charge a 100-µF capacitor to 1.7 V in 15 min when excited at 0.5  g, and produce a peak power of 0.89 µW.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongsheng Chen ◽  
Jing He ◽  
Gang Wang

Embedded wireless sensing networks (WSNs) provide effective solutions for structural health monitoring (SHM), where how to provide long-term electric power is a bottle-neck problem. Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting (PVEH) has been widely studied to realize self-powered WSNs due to piezoelectric effect. Structural vibrations are usually variable and exist in the form of elastic waves, so cantilever-like harvesters are not appropriate. In this paper, one kind of two-dimensional (2D) piezoelectric metamaterial plates with local resonators (PMP-LR) is investigated for structural vibration energy harvesting. In order to achieve low-frequency and broadband PVEH in SHM, it is highly necessary to study dynamic characteristics of PMP-LR, particularly bandgaps. Firstly, an analytical model is developed based on the Kirchhoff plate theory, and modal analysis is done by using the Rayleigh–Ritz method. Then, effects of geometric and material parameters on vibration bandgaps are analyzed by finite element-based simulations. In the end, experiments are carried out to validate the simulated results. The results demonstrate that the location of bandgaps can be easily adjusted by the design of local resonators. Therefore, the proposed method will provide an effective tool for optimizing local resonators in PMP-LR.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 015510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Yuan ◽  
Hulin Zhang ◽  
Jie Wang ◽  
Yuhang Xie ◽  
Saeed Ahmed Khan ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Baker ◽  
Timothy Reissman ◽  
Fan Zhou ◽  
Chen Wang ◽  
Kevin Lynch ◽  
...  

The inefficiency in converting low frequency vibration (6~240 Hz) to electrical energy remains a key issue for miniaturized vibration energy harvesting devices. To address this subject, this paper reports on the novel, three-dimensional micro-fabrication of spring elements within such devices, in order to achieve resonances and maximum energy conversion within these common frequencies. The process, known as projection microstereolithography, is exploited to fabricate polymer-based springs direct from computer-aided designs using digital masks and ultraviolet-curable resins. Using this process, a micro-spring structure is fabricated consisting of a two-by-two array of three-dimensional, constant-pitch helical coils made from 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate. Integrating the spring structure into an electromagnetic device, with a magnetic load mass of 1.236 grams, the resonance is measured at 61 Hz, which is within 2% of the theoretical model. The device provides a maximum normalized power output of 9.14 μW/G (G=9.81 ms−2) and an open circuit normalized voltage output of 621 mV/G. To the best of the authors knowledge, notable features of this work include the lowest Young’s modulus (530 MPa), density (1.011 g/cm3), and “largest feature size” (3.4 mm) for a spring element in a vibration energy harvesting device with sub-100 Hz resonance.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 452
Author(s):  
Sang Ying-Jun ◽  
Wu Shangguang ◽  
Li Man ◽  
Gao Yang ◽  
Li Haoxiang ◽  
...  

As a result of the electric vehicles popularity and the development of vehicles intelligent, the number of vehicle sensors surge, meanwhile, many defects of traditional energy supply are increasingly prominent, such as pollution and maintenance difficulties. Taking into account the vehicle vibration exist everywhere, we use the piezoelectric technology to collect vibration energy, and designs a piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting system to be used to solve the energy problem of micro-power sensor. In this paper, the system structure and the theoretical model are analyzed, and the mathematical model of the system vibration frequency and the piezoelectric output have been put forward, then a piezoelectric energy harvesting device is designed on the basis of simulation analysis. Experiments have been done to test the performance of its power generation in the case of resonance. The results showed that the theoretical model proposed in this paper can be a good predictor of the output characteristics of the system. As the resonance frequency is 16.5 Hz, acceleration is 0.5g, the maximum open circuit voltage of the system obtained is 3.5 volts, the optimum load resistance is 425kΩ, and the vibration energy collection device maximum load power is 14 uW. Conclusion: Greater energy could be caught to meet the vehicle sensor power supply needs with the use of super capacitor.


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