Random Effects in a Nonlinear Vibration-Based Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting System

Abstract

Vibration-based energy harvesting is of increasing importance and there is a current challenge to improve energy harvesting capacity exploiting nonlinear and random effects. This article investigates random effects in a nonlinear energy harvesting system. The system is represented by a magnetoelastic structure with two piezoceramic layers attached to the root of a cantilever beam, obtaining a bimorph generator. The energy harvesting system is subjected to three excitation conditions: pure harmonic, pure random and a combination of harmonic and random excitations. Noise-to-Signal Ratio (NSR) is employed to quantify different combinations of the forcing terms, establishing a procedure to evaluate the system performance. This approach is based on Power Spectral Density (PSD) of input and output signals. Numerical simulations are carried out, identifying the better combinations of harmonic and random excitations for energy harvesting purposes. Discussions about the influence of the kind of response are carried out evaluating the differences between periodic and chaotic motions. Conclusions show that both random and nonlinear effects can be tuned in order to enhance energy harvesting capacity.