Study of piezoelectric materials combined with electromagnetic design for bicycle harvesting system

Abstract

Energy harvesting device involves capturing energy from the environment and it is increasingly crucial in the crisis of greenhouse effect nowadays. Equipping bicycles with many types of shock absorbers can enhance the riding comfort. Additionally, an embedded energy harvesting device will gain much benefit beyond the sports. This study applied the finite element method to analyze the components of nonlinear magnetic spring. The analytical simulations were conducted to analyze the electromagnetic effect in ANSYS©/Emag software. A model equipped with nonlinear magnetic springs was constructed to absorb the impact energy. Nevertheless, the piezoelectric components were used to capture the piezoelectric effect current caused by the compressive stress. A series of simulations were conducted, such as changing the diameter of the magnet, electric coil width, and the position of the coils. Moreover, with those finite element analysis data, the Taguchi method L9(34) orthogonal arrays were applied to determine the optimal parametric dimensions of the electromagnetic and piezoelectric assemblies for maximizing the captured kinetic energy and power transformation. The results could assist the suspension manufacturers to innovate their design for energy harvesting and impact absorbing.