Nonlinear energy harvesting from rotating system

Abstract

A simple electromagnetic energy harvester with a cubic nonlinear stiffness is proposed and dynamic responses as well as the potential power harvested are studied in this paper. The proposed nonlinear electromagnetic vibration energy harvester can be installed on a host base that is rotating at a constant speed and vibrating vertically. Considering the combination of the vertically vibrating and rotating frequency of the host base, the 1:1 primary resonance is investigated by the method of multiple scales. The dynamic characteristics of responses in terms of system parameters are studied and bifurcation curves are constructed. In addition to possessing the resonance characteristics, some saddle–node bifurcations occur for the steady-state solutions under certain conditions. Moreover, the effects of system parameters on the output average power are investigated as well. The results of analysis show that multiple frequency bands and parameter regions exist where a large power can be harvested due to the nonlinear resonances. Introducing the nonlinearity not only can increase the power output but also expand the frequency bands and parameter regions to harvest more power. A carefully selected system parameters can help to optimize the average power harvested in the design.