Theoretical analysis and potential engineering application of an energy harvester

Abstract

The technique of energy harvesting, which captures the energy from ambient vibrations, has received increasing attention due to its potential to power low-powered wireless sensors. Therefore, it is important to reveal the nonlinear dynamic mechanism to design a high-performance energy harvester. This paper describes an energy harvester with the decoupled bistable potential (DBEH), in which the potential function can be controlled independently by the barrier height or the barrier width. The harmonic balance method (HBM) is used to obtain the theoretical solutions, and the Jacobian matrix is provided to determine their stability. Thirdly, this paper thoroughly discusses the influence of barrier height and width on output responses and the multi-solution range. Finally, numerical simulations observe the stochastic resonance (SR) phenomenon and the inverse SR phenomenon of the DBEH with Gaussian white noise injection. The SR phenomenon of the DBEH is applied to bearing fault diagnosis, effectively enhancing fault characteristics.