An Impact-Based Frequency Up-Converting Hybrid Vibration Energy Harvester for Low Frequency Application

Zhenlong Xu,Maoying Zhou,Hong Yang,Jin Xie,Wen Wang,Zhonggui Xu

doi:10.3390/en10111761

Zhenlong Xu, Maoying Zhou + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/en10111761

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Journal: Energies	Publication Date: Nov 2, 2017
Citations: 13	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Hangzhou Dianzi University, Zhejiang University

Abstract

In this paper, a novel impact-based frequency up-converting hybrid energy harvester (FUCHEH) was proposed. It consisted of a piezoelectric cantilever beam and a driving beam with a magnetic tip mass. A solenoid coil was attached at the end of the piezoelectric beam. This innovative configuration amplified the relative motion velocity between magnet and coil, resulting in an enhancement of the induced electromotive force in the coil. An electromechanical coupling model was developed and a numerical simulation was performed to study the principle of impact-based frequency up-converting. A prototype was fabricated and experimentally tested. The time-domain and frequency-domain analyses were performed. Fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis verified that fundamental frequencies and coupled vibration frequency contributes most of the output voltage. The measured maximum output power was 769.13 µW at a frequency of 13 Hz and an acceleration amplitude of 1 m/s2, which was 3249.4%- and 100.6%-times larger than that of the frequency up-converting piezoelectric energy harvesters (FUCPEH) and frequency up-converting electromagnetic energy harvester (FUCEMEH), respectively. The root mean square (RMS) voltage of the piezoelectric energy harvester subsystem (0.919 V) was more than 16 times of that of the stand-alone PEH (0.055 V). This paper provided a new scheme to improve generating performance of the vibration energy harvester with high resonant frequency working in the low-frequency vibration environment.

Highlights

With the development of the technology, the embedded wireless sensors and portable microelectronics devices are widely used in industry, agriculture, medicine, and so on
It consists of a bimorph piezoelectric cantilever beam with a high resonant frequency and a cantilevered driving beam with low resonant frequency
The root mean square (RMS) voltage of the piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) subsystem is 0.919 V, which is 94.5% of that of the electromagnetic energy harvester (FUCEMEH)

Summary

Introduction

With the development of the technology, the embedded wireless sensors and portable microelectronics devices are widely used in industry, agriculture, medicine, and so on. Energy supply is a critical challenge during the practical applications. Known as energy harvesting provides a clean, renewable, and uninterrupted solution to power the low power-consuming devices. The common energy sources in the ambient environment include solar, wind, thermal, vibration, and radiation energy. The vibration energy is widely distributed, and possesses high energy density. The transduction mechanisms of vibration energy harvesting can be divided into piezoelectric [1], electromagnetic [2], electrostatic [3], and magnetoelectric [4]. Due to the high electromechanical coupling coefficients, simple processing, and no external power supply, piezoelectric energy harvesting is the one of the most reported transduction mechanism.

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