Efficiency enhancement of electromagnetic energy harvesters for high‐rise buildings

<div>Advances in design and development of light-weight and low power wearable and mobile devices open up the possibility of lifetime extension of these devices from ambient sources through energy harvesting devices as opposed to periodically recharge the batteries. The most commonly available ambient energy source for mobile devices is Kinetic energy harvesters (KEH). The major drawback of the energy harvesters is limited effectiveness of harvesting mechanism near a fixed resonant frequency. It is difficult to harvest a reliable amount of energy from every forms of device motions with different excitation frequencies. To overcome this drawback, in this paper we propose an adaptive electromagnetic energy harvester which utilises spring characteristics to adapt its resonant frequency to match the ambient excitation frequency. This paper presents a prototype design and analysis of an adaptive electromagnetic energy harvester both in simulation and real. The harvester has tested using a specially designed experimental setup and compared with numerical simulations. The proposed solution generates 3.5 times higher maximum power over the default power output and 2.4 times higher maximum frequency compared to a fixed resonant frequency electromagnetic energy harvester.</div>

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Optimization of AA-Battery Sized Electromagnetic Energy Harvesters: Reducing the Resonance Frequency Using a Non-Magnetic Inertial Mass

IEEE Sensors Journal ◽

10.1109/jsen.2018.2819194 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 18 (11) ◽

pp. 4509-4516 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Oguz Yasar ◽

Hasan Ulusan ◽

Ozge Zorlu ◽

Ozlem Sardan-Sukas ◽

Haluk Kulah

Keyword(s):

Resonance Frequency ◽

Inertial Mass ◽

Electromagnetic Energy ◽

Energy Harvesters

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Feasibility Study of Fluctuating Wind Pressure around High-Rise Buildings as a Potential Energy-Harvesting Source

Energies ◽

10.3390/en12214032 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (21) ◽

pp. 4032 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Park ◽

Kim ◽

Jung

Keyword(s):

Energy Source ◽

Energy Harvesting ◽

Wind Turbine ◽

Wind Pressure ◽

Experimental Conditions ◽

Energy Harvesters ◽

High Rise ◽

New Locations ◽

Noise Vibration ◽

Fluctuating Wind

As the importance of sustainable energy increases, wind power generation systems utilizing wind energy around high-rise buildings are being developed. However, in existing wind turbine systems, it is necessary to solve noise, vibration problems, and structural issues for the installation of large-sized systems. In addition, small wind turbine systems can be installed only in limited areas such as roofs and corners, because their efficiency is limited to high and stable wind speed. For this reason, the distribution of fluctuating wind pressure around high-rise buildings was analyzed, and its feasibility as an energy source was evaluated, reflecting that fluctuating wind pressure can be used in vibration-based energy-harvesters. To achieve this, firstly, experimental conditions and theories were established to check the characteristic of wind pressure around high-rise buildings. The experiment was divided into the environment without surrounding buildings and the urban environment. Next, the pressure distribution around high-rise buildings and the quantitative results obtained from the experiment were determined. Finally, based on the results obtained from the experiments, the feasibility of fluctuating wind pressure as an energy-harvesting source was analyzed. From this study, it was found that fluctuating wind pressure can be used as a new energy source at new locations of high-rise buildings that were not utilized previously.

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