Circuit nonlinearity effect on the performance of an electromagnetic energy harvester-structure system

Scavenging energy from a vibrating building using distributed electromagnetic energy harvesters with nonlinear circuits

“…The structure is modeled as a multiple-degree-of-freedom system. This is different from Loong et al (2018) and Loong and Chang (2020), who modeled the structure as a single-degree-of-freedom system equipped with an EM energy harvester. The energy harvesting circuit made of a full-wave bridge rectifier connecting a capacitor in parallel with a resistor is examined.…”

“…These electronic components exhibit some degree of nonlinearity in their electronic properties, resulting in a nonlinear force-velocity relationship for the EM energy harvester (Jamshidi et al, 2017). Due to the electromechanical coupling between the harvester and the structure, the nonlinearity presented in the circuit could introduce nonlinear behavior to the harvester-structure system (Loong et al, 2018). This circuit nonlinearity, however, is quite often neglected in some preliminary studies (Harne, 2013, Zhang et al, 2018), which could lead to inaccurate response estimation.…”

“…Similar observation was also reported by Jamshidi et al (2018) in their experimental studies that the output power harnessed from the harvester could be zero when the vibration frequency was less than a critical value. It was also shown that the harvester could be ineffective in mitigating the vibration of structure if the bridge rectifier was not designed properly (Loong et al, 2018).…”

“…Some approximated techniques have been developed for estimating the response of harvester-structure system to study the effects of circuit nonlinearity (Cassidy and Scruggs, 2012, Wang et al, 2015). For instance, Loong et al (2018) developed a first-order harmonic balance technique to estimate the steady-state response of a nonlinear coupled harvester-structure system under harmonic excitations. A statistical linearization technique was further employed by Loong and Chang (2020) to determine the stationary response of the coupled system under random excitations.…”

Performance improvement of base isolation systems by incorporating eddy current damping and magnetic spring under earthquakes

“…To achieve the optimum damping in practice, the passive isolators have been integrated with supplemental control devices against near‐fault excitations, with the semiactive control and active control technologies, which need external energy supply. Therefore, the energy harvesting technology may be used to consume energy from the earthquake and store energy for control . Meanwhile, regarding the features of no energy supply and performance reliability, the conventional passive isolation systems assembled with innovative mechanical characteristics have emerged as an alternative method for developing optimal isolation systems with two principal objectives: (a) effective reduction of superstructure responses and (b) acceptable base displacements in the case of both far‐field and near‐field excitations.…”