scholarly journals Vibration Energy Harvesting by Means of Piezoelectric Patches: Application to Aircrafts

Sensors ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 363
Author(s):  
Domenico Tommasino ◽  
Federico Moro ◽  
Bruno Bernay ◽  
Thibault De Lumley Woodyear ◽  
Enrique de Pablo Corona ◽  
...  

Vibration energy harvesters in industrial applications usually take the form of cantilever oscillators covered by a layer of piezoelectric material and exploit the resonance phenomenon to improve the generated power. In many aeronautical applications, the installation of cantilever harvesters is not possible owing to the lack of room and/or safety and durability requirements. In these cases, strain piezoelectric harvesters can be adopted, which directly exploit the strain of a vibrating aeronautic component. In this research, a mathematical model of a vibrating slat is developed with the modal superposition approach and is coupled with the model of a piezo-electric patch directly bonded to the slat. The coupled model makes it possible to calculate the power generated by the strain harvester in the presence of the broad-band excitation typical of the aeronautic environment. The optimal position of the piezoelectric patch along the slat length is discussed in relation with the modes of vibration of the slat. Finally, the performance of the strain piezoelectric harvester is compared with the one of a cantilever harvester tuned to the frequency of the most excited slat mode.

2013 ◽  
Vol 80 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastien Boisseau ◽  
Ghislain Despesse ◽  
Bouhadjar Ahmed Seddik

Vibration energy harvesting is an emerging technology aimed at turning mechanical energy from vibrations into electricity to power the microsystems of the future. Most current vibration energy harvesters (VEH) are based on a mass-spring structure: this introduces a resonance phenomenon that enables an increase of VEH output power (compared to nonresonant systems); however, the working frequency bandwidth is limited. Therefore, these devices are not able to harvest energy when ambient vibrations’ frequencies shift. To solve this problem and to increase the frequency band where power can be harvested, one solution consists in using nonlinear springs. This paper introduces H-shaped nonlinear springs, their model, and their benefits to improve VEH output powers. Simulations on real vibration sources show that the output power can be higher in nonlinear devices (up to +48%) compared to linear systems.


Author(s):  
Sondipon Adhikari ◽  
Arnab Banerjee

Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters have demonstrated the potential for sustainable energy generation from diverse ambient sources in the context of low-powered micro-scale systems. However, challenges remain concerning harvesting more power from low-frequency input excitations and broadband random excitations. To address this, here we propose a purely mechanical approach by employing inertial amplifiers with cantilever piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters. The proposed mechanism can achieve inertial amplification amounting to orders of magnitude under certain conditions. Harmonic, as well as broadband random excitations, are considered. Two types of harvesting circuits, namely, without and with an inductor, have been employed. We explicitly demonstrate how different parameters describing the inertial amplifiers should be optimally tuned to maximise harvested power under different types of excitations and circuit configurations. It is possible to harvest five times more power at a 50% lower frequency when the ambient excitation is harmonic. Under random broadband ambient excitations, it is possible to harvest 10 times more power with optimally selected parameters.


Author(s):  
Chin An Tan ◽  
Heather L. Lai

Extensive research has been conducted on vibration energy harvesting utilizing a distributed piezoelectric beam structure. A fundamental issue in the design of these harvesters is the understanding of the response of the beam to arbitrary external excitations (boundary excitations in most models). The modal analysis method has been the primary tool for evaluating the system response. However, a change in the model boundary conditions requires a reevaluation of the eigenfunctions in the series and information of higher-order dynamics may be lost in the truncation. In this paper, a frequency domain modeling approach based in the system transfer functions is proposed. The transfer function of a distributed parameter system contains all of the information required to predict the system spectrum, the system response under any initial and external disturbances, and the stability of the system response. The methodology proposed in this paper is valid for both self-adjoint and non-self-adjoint systems, and is useful for numerical computer coding and energy harvester design investigations. Examples will be discussed to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach for designs of vibration energy harvesters.


Author(s):  
Mustafa H. Arafa

Vibration-based energy harvesters are usually designed to exhibit natural frequencies that match those of the excitation for maximum power output. This has spurred interest into the design of devices that respond to variable frequency sources. In this work, an electromagnetic energy harvester in the form of a base excited trapezoidal plate is proposed. The plate geometry is designed to achieve two closely spaced vibration modes in order to harvest energy across a broader bandwidth. The ensuing bending and twisting vibrations are utilized in this capacity by placing a magnet on the plate tip that moves past a stationary coil. A dynamic model is presented to predict the system performance and is verified experimentally.


2018 ◽  
Vol 85 (9) ◽  
pp. 553-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Amri ◽  
Philippe Basset ◽  
Dimitri Galayko ◽  
Francesco Cottone ◽  
Einar Halvorsen ◽  
...  

Abstract This paper presents a novel approach to design and optimize geometric nonlinear springs for wideband vibration energy harvesting. To this end, we designed a spring with several folds to increase its geometric nonlinearities. A numerical analysis is performed using the Finite Element Method to estimate its quadratic and cubic spring stiffness. A nonlinear effective spring constant is then calculated for different values of the main folding angle. We demonstrate that this angle can increase nonlinearities within the structure resulting in higher bandwidths, and that it is possible to control the behavior of the system to have softening-type or hardening-type response depending on the choice of the folding angle. Based on the Lindstedt-Poincaré perturbation technique, a first order approximation is determined to predict the frequency-response of the system. In order to validate the perturbation analysis, numerical solutions based on long-time integration method and mixed VHDL-AMS/Spice simulations are presented. Finally, this method is applied to a previously published device and shows a good agreement with experiments.


Author(s):  
Wei Yang ◽  
Panagiotis Alevras ◽  
Shahrzad Towfighian

There is a growing interest to convert ambient mechanical energy to electrical energy by vibration energy harvesters. Realistic vibrations are random and spread over a large frequency range. Most energy harvesters are linear with narrow frequency bandwidth and show low performance, which led to creation of nonlinear harvesters that have larger bandwidth. This article presents a simulation study of a nonlinear energy harvester that contains two cantilever beams coupled by magnetic force. One of the cantilever beam is covered partially by piezoelectric material, while the other beam is normal to the first one and is used to create a variable potential energy function. The variable double-well potential function enables optimum conversion of the kinetic energy and thus larger output. The system is modeled by coupled Duffing oscillator equations. To represent the ambient vibrations, the response to Gaussian random input signal (generated by Shinozuka formula) is studied using power spectral density. The effects of different parameters on the system are also investigated. The results show that the double cantilever harvester has a threshold distance, where the harvester can perform optimally regardless of the excitation level. This observation is opposite to that of the conventional fixed magnet cantilever system where the optimal distance varies with the excitation level. Results of this study can be used to enhance energy efficiency of vibration energy harvesters.


2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (13) ◽  
pp. 1433-1449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lihua Tang ◽  
Yaowen Yang ◽  
Chee-Kiong Soh

In recent years, several strategies have been proposed to improve the functionality of energy harvesters under broadband vibrations, but they only improve the efficiency of energy harvesting under limited conditions. In this work, a comprehensive experimental study is conducted to investigate the use of magnets for improving the functionality of energy harvesters under various vibration scenarios. First, the nonlinearities introduced by magnets are exploited to improve the performance of vibration energy harvesting. Both monostable and bistable configurations are investigated under sinusoidal and random vibrations with various excitation levels. The optimal nonlinear configuration (in terms of distance between magnets) is determined to be near the monostable-to-bistable transition region. Results show that both monostable and bistable nonlinear configurations can significantly outperform the linear harvester near this transition region. Second, for ultra-low-frequency vibration scenarios such as wave heave motions, a frequency up-conversion mechanism using magnets is proposed. By parametric study, the repulsive configuration of magnets is found preferable in the frequency up-conversion technique, which is efficient and insensitive to various wave conditions when the magnets are placed sufficiently close. These findings could serve as useful design guidelines when nonlinearity or frequency up-conversion techniques are employed to improve the functionality of vibration energy harvesters.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa H. Arafa

Vibration-based energy harvesters are usually designed to exhibit natural frequencies that match those of the excitation for maximum power output. This has spurred interest into the design of devices that respond to variable frequency sources. In this work, an electromagnetic energy harvester in the form of a base excited trapezoidal plate is proposed. The plate geometry is designed to achieve two closely spaced vibration modes in order to harvest energy across a broader bandwidth. The ensuing bending and twisting vibrations are utilized in this capacity by placing a magnet on the plate tip that moves past a stationary coil. A dynamic model is presented to predict the system performance and is verified experimentally.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (20) ◽  
pp. 2810-2826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronan Frizzell ◽  
Gerard Kelly ◽  
Francesco Cottone ◽  
Elisabetta Boco ◽  
Valeria Nico ◽  
...  

Vibration energy harvesting extracts energy from the environment and can mitigate reliance on battery technology in wireless sensor networks. This article presents the nonlinear responses of two multi-mass vibration energy harvesters that employ a velocity amplification effect. This amplification is achieved by momentum transfer from larger to smaller masses following impact between masses. Two systems are presented that show the evolution of multi-mass vibration energy harvester designs: (1) a simplified prototype that effectively demonstrates the basic principles of the approach and (2) an enhanced design that achieves higher power densities and a wider frequency response. Various configurations are investigated to better understand the nonlinear dynamics and how best to realise future velocity-amplified vibration energy harvesters. The frequency responses of the multi-mass harvesters show that these devices have the potential to reduce risks associated with deploying vibration energy harvester devices in wireless sensor network applications; the wide frequency response reduces the need to re-tune the harvesters following frequency variations of the source vibrations.


Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 436
Author(s):  
Junxiang Jiang ◽  
Shaogang Liu ◽  
Lifeng Feng ◽  
Dan Zhao

Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting technologies have attracted a lot of attention in recent decades, and the harvesters have been applied successfully in various fields, such as buildings, biomechanical and human motions. One important challenge is that the narrow frequency bandwidth of linear energy harvesting is inadequate to adapt the ambient vibrations, which are often random and broadband. Therefore, researchers have concentrated on developing efficient energy harvesters to realize broadband energy harvesting and improve energy-harvesting efficiency. Particularly, among these approaches, different types of energy harvesters adopting magnetic force have been designed with nonlinear characteristics for effective energy harvesting. This paper aims to review the main piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting technologies with magnetic coupling, and determine the potential benefits of magnetic force on energy-harvesting techniques. They are classified into five categories according to their different structural characteristics: monostable, bistable, multistable, magnetic plucking, and hybrid piezoelectric–electromagnetic energy harvesters. The operating principles and representative designs of each type are provided. Finally, a summary of practical applications is also shown. This review contributes to the widespread understanding of the role of magnetic force on piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting. It also provides a meaningful perspective on designing piezoelectric harvesters for improving energy-harvesting efficiency.


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