Dynamic Analysis and Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting from a Nonideal Portal Frame System including Nonlinear Energy Sink Effect

Abstract

This paper investigates, through numerical simulations, the application of piezoelectric materials in energy generation. The mathematical model describes a U-shaped portal frame system, excited by an engine with unbalanced mass and coupled to a nonlinear energy sink (NES), which is used as a passive vibration absorber. The influence of the piezoelectric material parameters used in the energy collection and the dimensioning parameters of the NES system is deeply analyzed in this paper. Numerical simulations are presented considering all combinations of the parameters of the piezoelectric material model and the NES. The system dynamics were analyzed through phase diagrams and the 0–1 test. The estimation of energy collection was carried out by calculating the average power. The numerical results show that a more significant potential for energy generation is obtained for certain combinations of parameters, as well as chaotic behavior in some cases.