Abstract
It is well known that when excited by a stochastic base acceleration, the power absorbed by a nonlinear Duffing-type piezoelectric (PE) or electromagnetic (EM) energy harvester might not be increased effectively compared to a linear one. When intentionally introducing nonlinear magnetic forces into a doubly-clamped hybrid PE and EM energy harvester subjected to narrow-band (colored) excitation however, the power output could be improved to a much higher value. Also, in comparison with the typical nonlinear PE or EM generator, the influence of load and excitation parameters on the performance of a nonlinear hybrid energy harvester under colored excitation has been proven rather different as well. These results are derived analytically by solving the Fokker-Planck (FP) equation, and numerically by Monte Carlo (MC) simulations for validation. Besides, for a nonlinear hybrid configuration excited by colored noise approaching white Gaussian excitation, theoretical output characteristics are discussed and compared with results from a reported theory for white Gaussian excited case, which again verifies the feasibility of the theoretical analysis.
Highlights
The significant progress in microelectronics, combined with the increasing demand from numerous industrial fields, makes the embedded autonomous wireless sensors and portable smart devices very popular due to their wide potential applications and ability to be employed in inaccessible and hostile environments
Output performances of hybrid piezoelectric and electromagnetic energy harvester can be influenced by characteristics of excitation signal, that is, the bandwidth γ, center frequency ω c and constant spectral density S0 within a certain frequency range
As shown the in Figure it could betrajectories observed firstly thatfrom the theoretical trends of mean numerically verified that when the center frequency and bandwidth of colored excitation are constant, power with the increase of EM resistance are consistent with Monte Carlo simulation, which proves total mean output increases linearly with the increase of acceleration’s spectral density, and the accuracy and power feasibility of using the Fokker-Planck theory to predict output characteristics of both mean output voltage and mean output current increase with the acceleration’s spectral nonlinear hybrid PE and EM energy harvester under colored noise again
Summary
The significant progress in microelectronics, combined with the increasing demand from numerous industrial fields, makes the embedded autonomous wireless sensors and portable smart devices very popular due to their wide potential applications and ability to be employed in inaccessible and hostile environments. As reported in the available literature, designing energy harvesters excited by steady-state harmonic input with nonlinearities could be more frequency-robust in frequency variable situations and could improve the output performance over a wider bandwidth as well [30,31] It has been indicated theoretically, numerically and experimentally that for energy harvesters with a single mechanism, introducing stiffness-type nonlinearities will not provide any enhancement in energy harvesting under both white Gaussian excitation and colored (narrow-band) excitation.
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