Optimisation and Management of Energy Generated by a Multifunctional MFC-Integrated Composite Chassis for Rail Vehicles

Yiding Liu,Yu Jia,Christopher Micallef,Yu Shi,Darren J Hughes,Sijun Du

doi:10.3390/en13112720

Abstract

With the advancing trend towards lighter and faster rail transport, there is an increasing interest in integrating composite and advanced multifunctional materials in order to infuse smart sensing and monitoring, energy harvesting and wireless capabilities within the otherwise purely mechanical rail structures and the infrastructure. This paper presents a holistic multiphysics numerical study, across both mechanical and electrical domains, that describes an innovative technique of harvesting energy from a piezoelectric micro fiber composites (MFC) built-in composite rail chassis structure. Representative environmental vibration data measured from a rail cabin have been critically leveraged here to help predict the actual vibratory and power output behaviour under service. Time domain mean stress distribution data from the Finite Element simulation were used to predict the raw AC voltage output of the MFCs. Conditioned power output was then calculated using circuit simulation of several state-of-the-art power conditioning circuits. A peak instantaneous rectified power of 181.9 mW was obtained when eight-stage Synchronised Switch Harvesting Capacitors (SSHC) from eight embedded MFCs were located. The results showed that the harvested energy could be sufficient to sustain a self-powered structural health monitoring system with wireless communication capabilities. This study serves as a theoretical foundation of scavenging for vibrational power from the ambient state in a rail environment as well as to pointing to design principles to develop regenerative and power neutral smart vehicles.

Highlights

Rail transport, as a means of transit for passengers and goods in daily life, is increasingly targeting and transforming towards lightweight, faster speeds and net zero carbon emissions.The current state-of-the-art in the automotive sector suggests using “right material in the right place” to satisfy the stiffness, strength, and crashworthiness certification requirements
It is clear that it is impossible for the energy harvesting from the vehicle vibration meet the power requirement of the motors and actuators itself, as the motive power requirement is more than an order of magnitude higher than what energy harvesting can provide
This paper presented the energy generation from a multifunctional micro fiber composites (MFC)-embedded composite chassis of a rail structure

Summary

Introduction

The current state-of-the-art in the automotive sector suggests using “right material in the right place” to satisfy the stiffness, strength, and crashworthiness certification requirements. This leads to the application of composite materials, such as carbon fiber or glass fiber reinforced polymers, due to their lighter weight and high stiffness-to-weight ratio. Vibration-based energy harvesting, as one of the most promising research fields, has been established utilising electromagnetic generators [3], piezoelectric generators [4,5], MEMS-scale electrostatic generators [6], triboelectric [7,8] and magnetostrictive effects [9]. When using electrets to provide the initial charge, the output impedance is often quite high which makes them less suitable as a power supply [17]

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