A sectional nonlinear wideband piezoelectric-magnetic coupled energy collector for collecting multi-directional vibrational energy

Abstract

Abstract The classic vibration energy collector has functional restrictions, and it can only collect vibration energy in one or two dimensions. At the same time, it has issues with low output power in the low-frequency vibration region and a limited reaction frequency range. This research proposes a segmented nonlinear broadband piezoelectric–magnetic coupled energy collector capable of collecting vibration energy in different directions. The collector is equivalent to current state-of-the-art research in that it can collect vibration energy in three dimensions while also having a wide collection frequency and a high power density. The collection consists of a hemispherical support structure and four fundamental piezoelectric beam collision components. The rationality of the collision segmentation nonlinear principle is first clarified through theoretical calculation and analysis, and then the collision design is applied between the ends of different cantilever beams to broaden the captured energy frequency band, while parallel piezoelectric beams use a 45° tilt treatment to fully utilize the geometrical properties of the tilted beams for multidirectional energy collection. In addition, the collector introduces a magnetic coupling effect to create a bistable structure via magnetic contact. Comsol 5.6 software is used to model and simulate the planned 45° tilted beam structure, which clarifies the piezoelectric beam’s linear intrinsic frequency characteristics and multi-directional geometric aspects. To further verify the collector’s validity, a physical model is built and a vibration experiment apparatus is created. The experimental results demonstrate that the collector’s effective bandwidth range is up to 6.3 Hz under 1 g acceleration excitation, representing a 125.0% increase in bandwidth when compared to the cantilever beam with a linear array. At 14 Hz frequency, the collector produces a maximum total output power of 19.52 mW and a power density of up to 3211uW cm−3 when excitation is provided in the Z-direction.