Abstract
Energy harvesting has become a fascinating topic of research. As the world moves towards reducing its dependency on fossil fuels, new and innovative techniques of energy harvesting have been tested and developed. The use of piezoelectric materials to harvest the ambient vibrations from the surroundings is one method that has seen a dramatic rise in use for power harvesting. Remote sensors can be powered by these piezoelectric materials and could potentially act as a continuous source of energy. In space vehicles, energy is generated using solar panels which are bulky, heavy and expensive. Instead piezoelectric harvesters can be used to generate power and are much lighter, compact and relatively cheap when produced in bulk. This paper presents a theoretical study on energy harvesting from structural vibration caused by combustion instability of a solid rocket motor through the motor burnout. Vibration data of tested solid rocket motor was taken as a reference and was inputted as the boundary condition. The 3-D model of the harvester system was designed on Fusion360 and the simulation was performed on COMSOL. Finally, improvements needed in the system to enhance practicality were discussed.
Highlights
In years energy harvesting has seen a rise in research and implementation
Vibration energy harvesting with piezoelectric materials is of practical interest because of the demand for wireless sensing devices and low-power portable electronics without external power supply
Maximum energy is harvested by the piezoelectric harvester at its resonant frequency, the harvester should be tuned to the frequency of vibration
Summary
In years energy harvesting has seen a rise in research and implementation. Vibration energy harvesting with piezoelectric materials is of practical interest because of the demand for wireless sensing devices and low-power portable electronics without external power supply. Many non-traditional energy harvesters like thermometric generator, piezoelectric transducers, solar photo voltaic cells, electromagnetic inductor coils, have come up and are being developed for mass usage (Beeby and White 2010). These energy harvesters have several advantages over traditional batteries; energy harvesters can be used to power sensors and other low voltage. The phenomenon of combustion instability in SRM is an oscillatory interaction between gas flow and combustion of the propellant in such a way that pressure oscillations develop with amplitudes comparable to the mean pressure (Price 1959) This instability produces longitudinal structural vibrations which travels through the whole rocket fuselage. Makhihara and Shimose (Makihara and Shimose 2012) presented harvesting of electrical energy using fluttering phenomena of wings of a sounding
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