Important considerations in optimising the structural aspect of a SDOF electromagnetic vibration energy harvester

Abstract

This study investigates several important considerations to be made when optimising the structural aspects of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) electromagnetic vibration energy harvester. Using the critically damped stress method, the damping and power output of the harvester were modelled and verified, displaying an excellent agreement with the experimental results. The SDOF harvester was structurally optimised under a certain set of constraints and it was found that under the fixed beam's thickness condition, the harvester displayed an insignificant increase in power output as a function of volume when the device's size was relatively larger. This highlights the importance of considering a smaller practical volume for this case. Additionally, when optimising the device using a low stress constraint and a low damping material, it was observed that considering the load resistance as an input parameter to the objective function would lead to a higher power output compared to the optimum load resistance condition. Further analysis indicated that there exists a power limit when the electromagnetic coupling coefficient approaches infinity. For the case of a high electromagnetic coupling coefficient value and a small volume constraint, it is possible to achieve approximately 80.0% of the harvester's power limit. Finally, it was demonstrated that a high power output can be achieved for a SDOF electromagnetic harvester by considering a high-density proof mass centred at the free end of the beam.

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Typical dampers and energy harvesters based on characteristics of ferrofluids

“…Scholars have studied the motion of MFs in tuned magnetic fluid dampers (TMFDs) to enhance their energy consumption efficiency [54][55][56]. In recent years, an increasing number of vibration energy harvesters based on the levitation characteristics of ferrofluids have been developed to obtain electrical energy from low-frequency vibrations [57,58].…”

Experimental Study on Magnetic Coupling Piezoelectric–Electromagnetic Composite Galloping Energy Harvester

“…Vibration energy collection technology can effectively capture energy from the working environment of equipment and has developed rapidly in the past 20 years. At present, the common modes of vibration energy capture are piezoelectric [ 1 , 2 ], electromagnetic [ 3 , 4 ], triboelectric [ 5 ], and thermoelectric [ 6 ]. Among them, the piezoelectric energy harvesting device has the advantages of simple structure, high output voltage, wide working frequency range, and high energy density [ 7 , 8 , 9 ], Additionally, the electromagnetic energy harvesting device has the advantages of simple structure, large output current, and high energy collector efficiency [ 10 ].…”