Low-power electricity generation from dynamical systems

Abstract

This talk will review our research on energy harvesting from electroelastic dynamical systems for low-power electricity generation with an emphasis on piezoelectric transduction. The transformation of vibrations into electricity using piezoelectric materials with the goal of powering small electronic components has received growing attention over the last decade. Enabling energy-autonomous small electronic components can lead to reduced maintenance costs in various wireless applications, such as structural health monitoring of civil and military systems. After a brief discussion of energy harvesting methods for low-power electricity generation, this talk will be focused on linear and nonlinear energy harvesting using piezoelectric materials through the topics of distributed-parameter electroelastic dynamics of energy harvesters, performance and frequency bandwidth enhancement by exploiting nonlinear dynamic phenomena, deterministic and stochastic excitation of monostable and bistable configurations, effects of dissipative and inherent electroelastic nonlinearities, electroaeroelastic flow energy harvesting using airfoil-based and bluff body-based configurations, and enhanced harvesting of structure-borne propagating waves using elastoacoustic mirrors and metamaterial structures. A brief introduction to our efforts on multifunctional underwater thrust and power generation using flexible piezoelectric composites will also be given.