Abstract
Energy harvested from vibrating cables can serve as a sustainable and green power source for low-power sensing systems and vibration control systems. However, the energy-harvesting performance of inerter-based dampers installed at stay cables has rarely been reported so far. This paper investigates the energy-harvesting performance of a novel inerter-based electromagnetic damper, termed tuned inertial mass electromagnetic damper (TIMED), which is capable of converting cable vibration energy into electric energy to be harvested. Based on energy balance principles, a power flow model is established for the TIMED, considering major and minor power terms, which account for different power losses occurring during the energy conversion stages. This model is capable of predicting the output power and energy-harvesting efficiency under harmonic displacement or harmonic force inputs. A series of MTS dynamic tests were performed in a TIMED prototype to validate the theoretical model. Under a harmonic force excitation of 1.6kN near the damper’s resonance, the TIMED achieved a maximum output power of 69.54 W. To evaluate the actual performance of the TIMED, we conducted a full-scale experiment on a 135 m-long stay cable with the TIMED prototype. Full-scale experimental results illustrate that the maximum average output power of the TIMED attached to the tested cable in the free vibration case is up to 13.6 W, which is 48.3% larger than the counterpart of an electromagnetic damper (EMD). In addition, an optimal design strategy is proposed and validated for the cable-TIMED system. Numerical results demonstrated that, in theory, the output power of the TIMED can be 81.7% larger than that of an EMD. The performance enhancement of the TIMED over conventional EMD attributes to its displacement and energy amplification near resonance. This study may help to put forward the development of self-powered dampers or self-powered sensing systems in the years to come.
Published Version
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