Abstract
In this work, we propose a wideband quintuple-well potential piezoelectric-based vibration energy harvester using a combined nonlinearity: the magnetic nonlinearity induced by magnetic force and the piecewise-linearity produced by mechanical impact. With extra stable states compared to other multi-stable harvesters, the quin-stable harvester can distribute its potential energy more uniformly, which provides shallower potential wells and results in lower excitation threshold for interwell motion. The mathematical model of this quin-stable harvester is derived and its equivalent piecewise-nonlinear restoring force is measured in the experiment and identified as piecewise polynomials. Numerical simulations and experimental verifications are performed in different levels of sinusoid excitation ranging from 1 to 25 Hz. The results demonstrate that, with lower potential barriers compared with tri-stable counterpart, the quin-stable arrangement can escape potential wells more easily for doing high-energy interwell motion over a wider band of frequencies. Moreover, by utilizing the mechanical stoppers, this harvester can produce significant output voltage under small tip deflections, which results in a high power density and is especially suitable for a compact MEMS approach.
Highlights
When the excitation level is set at A=0.7 g, as shown in Fig. 5(a), the Quin-stable Energy Harvester (QEH) could jump the potential wells and do large-amplitude interwell motions in the frequency range of 5.5–16.2 Hz and, simultaneously, generate high output voltage
When the excitation level increases to 1 g, as shown in Fig. 7(b), the Tri-stable Energy Harvesters (TEH) could enter into large-amplitude interwell oscillations at 7.5–12.6 Hz, while the effective operating bandwidth of the QEH extends to 3–20 Hz, which is much wider than that of the TEH
The equivalent piecewise-nonlinear restoring force of the quin-stable harvester is experimental identified as piecewise polynomials
Summary
Exploiting nonlinear dynamic phenomena for frequency bandwidth and performance enhancement in piezoelectric-based vibration energy harvesting has received great research interest.[1,2,3] As a result, mono-stable,[4,5,6,7] bi-stable,[8,9,10,11,12,13,14] and tri-stable[15,16,17,18,19] nonlinear oscillators containing such nonlinear stiffness characteristics are extensively investigated to maximize the output power over a wide-band of operating frequencies. Compared with mono-stable harvesters, bi-stable harvesters have ability to extract high electrical power from ambient vibration sources over a wideband, when the potential escape phenomenon (inducing a largeamplitude interwell motion) occurs. Maintaining this large-amplitude interwell motion state in bi-stable harvesters exists many difficulties.[14] In addition, one significant restriction in bi-stable harvesters is that large-amplitude interwell oscillation for maximizing the device performance under low excitation level is impossible to achieve due to the difficulty of overcoming the potential barrier between two stable equilibria.[18]. By utilizing the mechanical stoppers, this harvester could produce significant output voltage within a restricted displacement, which improves its power density and makes its structure more compact
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