Abstract
The proposal of Energy Harvesting (EH) techniques and devices has experienced a significant growth over the last years, because of the spread of low power electronic devices. Small ambient energy quantities can be recovered through EH and exploited to power Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) used, for example, for the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of bridges or viaducts. For this purpose, research on EH devices based on magnetostrictive materials has significantly grown in the last years. However, these devices comprise different parts, such as a mechanical system, magnetic circuit and electrical connections, which are coupled together. Then, a method able to reproduce the performance may be a handy tool. This paper presents a nonlinear equivalent circuit of a harvester, based on multiple rods of Galfenol, which can be solved with standard circuit simulator. The circuital parameters are identified with measurements both on one rod and on the whole device. The validation of the circuit and the analysis of the power conversion performance of the device have been conducted with different working conditions (force profile, typology of permanent magnets, resistive electrical load).
Highlights
The goal of Energy Harvesting (EH) techniques is to scavenge small environmental energy quantities and convert them into electrical one in order to supply low-power consumption electronics [1,2,3]
The characterization and modeling of a kinetic energy harvesting (KEH) device based on Galfenol has been concerned
A nonlinear model of SA Galfenol have been adopted and its parameters have been determined by using the measured magnetostrictives curves
Summary
The goal of Energy Harvesting (EH) techniques is to scavenge small environmental energy quantities and convert them into electrical one in order to supply low-power consumption electronics [1,2,3]. Wireless Sensors Network (WSN) has an important one in the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) to monitor existing aged structures, such as bridges, viaducts or railways [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. These may be placed in rural areas, where often the electrical network is not present. This is a limitation in the application of WSN to continuous SHM because the maintenance cost of the sensors is considered high and this results in a detriment of users safety
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