Modeling Simulation and Characterization of Hybrid Energy Harvester for Structural Health Monitoring Systems of Bridges

Abstract

From last few decades’ piezoelectric materials are widely used in the field of structural health monitoring because of its ability for voltage dependent actuation. This paper presents the analytical modeling and simulation of a hybrid (electromagnetic and piezoelectric) energy harvester (having nonlinear behavior) that generates power from vibrations of bridges for structure health monitoring systems. The modeled hybrid energy harvester is comprised of two beams and two tip masses attached to the ends of both beams. Beam 1 consists of a piezoelectric layer and a substrate layer while beam 2 contains a coil and permanent magnet. The two beams are assembled with a specific L shaped Geometry. Base excitations are provided in the transverse direction of the first beam of the harvester. The L-shape structure is modeled as a continuous system rather than a lumped-mass system to investigate the dynamic behavior of the structure in a more sophisticated manner. The simulation is performed for both parallel and series combinations of piezoelectric layers. In the case of a parallel combination of piezoelectric layers, maximum voltage of 1.66 V is obtained at 0.2g acceleration level and resonance, while the corresponding power is 65.61 µW is produced. However, in the case of series combination simulation shows the production of the maximum voltage of 1.95 V and the corresponding power of 90.54 µW at 0.2g acceleration level.