A HYBRID NONLINEAR VIBRATION ENERGY HARVESTER FOR REMOTE SENSING APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Energy harvesting mechanisms can be used to extract energy from ambient surroundings to power small electronic devices which has a significant advantage in realizing self-sustaining wireless devices. The piezoelectric energy harvester was modeled with a Macro Fiber Composite (MFC) P2-type while the electromechanical transduction was modeled by an elastic magnet coupled to the bluff body movement. A numerical solver was used to estimate harvestable voltage for this submerged hybrid energy harvester model by using ordinary differential equations. Computational fluid dynamics and finite element analysis with ANSYS were used to visualize the response in synchronization and output the voltage extracted from the harvesting mechanisms. Increasing the water velocity increases the overall output voltage and is a maximum at the natural frequency of the system when synchronization phenomena is observed. Broadband energy harvester is achieved by attaching magnets on the bluff body and is useful for increasing the harvestable range of variable flows. While conventional narrowband energy harvesters are still superior when near the natural frequency, the magnet coupling broadens the synchronization range of the harvesters by 35%. Implementing a hybrid piezoelectric-electromagnetic energy harvesting system increased the voltage output by up to 23% compared to a conventional piezoelectric energy harvester.