Reversible hysteresis for broadband magnetopiezoelastic energy harvesting

Abstract

We model and experimentally validate a nonlinear energy harvester capable of bidirectional hysteresis. In particular, both hardening and softening response within the quadratic potential field of a power generating piezoelectric beam (with a permanent magnet end mass) is invoked by tuning nonlinear magnetic interactions. Not only is this technique shown to increase the bandwidth of the device but experimental results additionally verify the capability to outperform linear resonance. Engaging this nonlinear phenomenon is ideally suited to efficiently harvest energy from ambient excitations with slowly varying frequencies.

On the energy harvesting potential of piezoaeroelastic systems

“…1 Typically, cantilevers with piezoceramics are used as piezoelectric energy harvesters and the source of excitation is assumed to be base motion. [2][3][4][5][6] Researchers have investigated linear 2,3 and nonlinear [4][5][6] piezoelectric energy harvesting under deterministic and nondeterministic excitations.…”

A New Vibration Energy Harvester Using Magnetoelectric Transducer

“…And by nonlinear behaviors of the magnetic forces F A and F B , the softening responses of the beams A and B appear in Fig. 10(c), which allow the frequency responses to be also broadened [11,12]. In this case, the harvester shows a 3dB bandwidth of 5.6 Hz.…”

“…Furthermore, in this harvester, because the two ME transducers are magnetized by the magnets, there exists magnetic force between either ME transducer and the magnetic circuit. By nonlinear behavior of the magnetic force, hardening or softening response of the cantilever beams A and B will appear in frequency response of the harvester, which allows the frequency response to be broadened in either direction [11,12].…”

“…The reported harvesters covered a wide band of external vibration frequency by implementing a number of serially connected cantilever beams with varying natural frequencies [9,10]. Nonlinear behavior offers new capabilities to capture energy available from more complex excitations, and several recent papers demonstrated the efficacy of this approach [11,12]. These broadening technologies in the harvesters using piezoelectric, electromagnetic and electrostatic transduction mechanisms have shown some pro-mise, but they would not be applied in the harvesters using ME transducers directly due to the different transduction mechanisms.…”

Passive linearization of nonlinear resonances

“…There have been attempts to exploit nonlinearity rather than avoiding it. Bistability and jump phenomena were used to enhance noise squeezing 24 , to enlarge the bandwidth of energy harvesters [25][26][27][28] , to improve mass detection 29 , to reduce the sensitivity of a resonator to the phase of the drive 7 and to develop new mechanical memory devices 30,31 . Superharmonic excitation and internal resonances were employed to improve stability properties of resonators 32 and time keeping devices 13 .…”