Frequency Up-conversion Mechanism Research Articles

Piezo stack energy harvesters with protection components for railway applications

Piezo stack energy harvesting from railway vibrations shows substantial potential for powering wireless sensor networks responsible for monitoring railway infrastructure. Nevertheless, assuring the safety and durability of these energy harvesters in the condition of the dynamically fluctuating railway vibrations remains a considerable challenge. In this paper, we present two innovative protection methods designed for piezo stack energy harvesters with a frequency up-conversion mechanism. These methods involve the incorporation of ring-type and circular stoppers within the resonant system and the utilisation of proposed impact protection components within the impact system. Two distinct harvesters incorporating the proposed protection components, Harvester Types I and II, are designed to align with their respective operating acceleration targets, which are determined based on the amplitudes of railway vibration acceleration. Finite element modelling is used to guide the design process, involving the evaluation and selection of various design parameters aligned with the acceleration target and stress limits. The protection mechanisms’ effectiveness and impact on energy harvesting performance have been validated through experimental testing under measured rail vibration signals, and their performance has been further assessed through stress analyses. Harvester Type I operates seamlessly within a 5 g threshold, effectively mitigating the increase in maximum output acceleration and stress beyond this limit. In contrast, Harvester Type II efficiently dissipates excess energy, enabling the harvester to operate at a 15 g acceleration while reducing the rate of acceleration and stress growth. The results demonstrate that both proposed harvesters provide effective protection from unexpected railway vibration overloads. This research makes a significant impact on the practical, real-world implementation of piezo stack energy harvesters operating within the dynamic environment of railway vibrations.

A piezoelectric-electromagnetic hybrid energy harvester with frequency-up conversion mechanism towards low-frequency-low-intensity applications

This paper proposes a piezoelectric-electromagnetic hybrid energy harvester (PEHEH) with frequency-up conversion (FUC) mechanisms toward harvesting low-frequency-low-intensity, and wideband vibrational energy. The PEHEH consists of a stator with embedded coils, an eccentric rotor embedded with permanent magnets, and a fan-folded piezoelectric beam fixed to the stator. The eccentric rotor converts low-frequency straight vibration into rotational motion, and generates currents across the coils. The rotor could collide with the fan-folded beam, resulting in voltage generation due to the deformation of the fan-folded beam. The FUC mechanism broadens the bandwidth and harvests additional energy through the piezoelectric effect. The fan-folded beam can be considered as a nonlinear oscillator of hardening type. The electro-magnetic-mechanical system is modeled as a driven pendulum that impacts a mass-spring-damper system. The electromagnetic coupling effect is theoretically determined and equivalent to a nonlinear damping term. The nonlinear dynamical system is analyzed theoretically, numerically and experimentally. The results show that the bandwidth of the PEHEH is broadened than that of the energy harvester without the FUC mechanism. The maximum power reaches 26.4 mW at 4 Hz. The PEHEH can power an acceleration sensor at 4 Hz in laboratory environments and a temperature-humidity sensor in actual working conditions of an agricultural tractor's spray rod.

A multi-physics system integration and modeling method for piezoelectric wave energy harvester

The multiphysics system integration and modeling method, including hydrodynamic, kinematic, and electromechanical models, were developed. A one-way plucking-driven piezoelectric wave energy harvester (OPD-PWEH) was also developed; it consists of a floating cylindrical buoy, a frequency up-conversion mechanism based on a one-way bearing, and a piezoelectric component based on an array of piezoelectric bulk composite cantilever beams. The one-way bearing converts the repetitive clockwise and counterclockwise rotary motion of the input shaft into a single-directional clockwise rotary motion of the output shaft. The OPD-PWEH was tested in a wave flume under wave amplitudes of 50, 37.5, and 25 mm and wave periods of 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 s. The experimental results showed that the RMS voltage and average power were 4.47 V and 0.4 mW, respectively, and they were obtained at 50 mm wave amplitude and 1 s wave period.

A floating piezoelectric electromagnetic hybrid wave vibration energy harvester actuated by a rotating wobble ball

This paper presents a floating piezoelectric electromagnetic hybrid wave vibration energy harvester actuated by a rotating wobble ball. The kinematic equation of the rotating wobble ball under the influence of the wave is established by simplifying the ocean wave model. One merit of the proposed harvester is that it can harvest wave vibration energy via a frequency up-conversion mechanism. The vibration energy of a wave is converted into electrical energy by the electromagnetic generator (EMG) and the piezoelectric ceramic transducer (PZT). Low-frequency vibration energy is converted into the high frequency vibration of the PZTs using frequency up-conversion mechanism. The results show that the maximum power generated by the proposed hybrid energy harvester is 21.95 mW when the external frequency of the wave is 1.4 Hz. Additionally, two PZTs and the EMG successfully output about 11.26 mW of power to light up LEDs throughout a test of low-power electronics. The results demonstrate that low-frequency wave vibrations can be efficiently harvested using the proposed hybrid vibration energy harvester.

Comparison of Power Density of Triboelectric Generators via Frequency-up-Conversion Method

In this paper, we experimentally compared the instantaneous volume power density and the average volume power density of the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) with and without a frequency-up conversion mechanism. We first proposed a double-cantilever structure TENG (DC-TENG). A conventional contact-separation TENG was also constructed as the control case for electric output comparison. A few experiments were then conducted to investigate how the cantilever’s high-frequency vibrations influence the output voltage, instantaneous power, etc., before those of the triboelectric nanogenerator without frequency conversion. The results indicate that the double-cantilever system effectively converts low-frequency linear impact into high-frequency vibration. As of the best contrast, the DC-TENG yields a maximal open-circuit voltage of 141.5 V, an instantaneous power of 0.76 mW, and an average power of 0.77 μW excited by a linear impact, which frequency is 0.6 Hz and amplitude is 8 mm. The peak and the average power density of generators with the frequency convert device are enhanced by 34 times and 13 times as high as those of the original case, respectively. This finding proves that the cantilever integrated with triboelectric nanogenerators is an effective configuration with evident performance improvement.

Intelligent Cubic-Designed Piezoelectric Node (iCUPE) with Simultaneous Sensing and Energy Harvesting Ability toward Self-Sustained Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT)

The evolution of artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) drastically facilitates the development of a smart city via comprehensive perception and seamless communication. As a foundation, various AIoT nodes are experiencing low integration and poor sustainability issues. Herein, a cubic-designed intelligent piezoelectric AIoT node iCUPE is presented, which integrates a high-performance energy harvesting and self-powered sensing module via a micromachined lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thick-film-based high-frequency (HF)-piezoelectric generator (PEG) and poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) nanofiber thin-film-based low-frequency (LF)-PEGs, respectively. The LF-PEG and HF-PEG with specific frequency up-conversion (FUC) mechanism ensures continuous power supply over a wide range of 10-46 Hz, with a record high power density of 17 mW/cm3 at 1 g acceleration. The cubic design allows for orthogonal placement of the three FUC-PEGs to ensure a wide range of response to vibrational energy sources from different directions. The self-powered triaxial piezoelectric sensor (TPS) combined with machine learning (ML) assisted three orthogonal piezoelectric sensing units by using three LF-PEGs to achieve high-precision multifunctional vibration recognition with resolutions of 0.01 g, 0.01 Hz, and 2° for acceleration, frequency, and tilting angle, respectively, providing a high recognition accuracy of 98%-100%. This work proves the feasibility of developing a ML-based intelligent sensor for accelerometer and gyroscope functions at resonant frequencies. The proposed sustainable iCUPE is highly scalable to explore multifunctional sensing and energy harvesting capabilities under diverse environments, which is essential for AIoT implementation.

Vibration energy harvester with double frequency-up conversion mechanism for self-powered sensing system in smart city

This paper has proposed a vibration energy harvester (VEH) with double frequency-up conversion (FUC) mechanism which can be applied to harvest energy from vibrations at ultra-low frequency. The device can initially up-convert the external vibrations with sub-Hertz into tens of Hertz, and further convert to hundreds of Hertz by the second FUC mechanism, which gives a high conversion ratio of 8400. A comprehensive dynamic model has been proposed and verified both from the theoretical analysis and COMSOL simulation to analyze the frequency conversion process and output voltage. When excited by a frequency of 0.2 Hz, an average output power of 75 μW could be obtained with a compact size. Benefiting from the non-contact design, the device could be applied in some sealed scenarios for smart city construction. Herein, a wireless humid-temperature sensor node in the pipeline was successfully powered by harvesting energy from humans walking with the proposed VEH, showing promising application prospects.

Design, modelling and testing of a compact piezoelectric transducer for railway track vibration energy harvesting

To enable wireless sensor networks to monitor rail infrastructures in real-time, a cost-effective power source is in need. This work presents the design, modelling and testing of a piezo stack energy harvester with frequency up-conversion mechanism for scavenging energy from railway track vibration. The proposed harvester is designed to meet railway track applications’ size, frequency, and stress requirements. A compact design integrating the inertial mass and the piezo stack transducer systems is used to enable the mechanical collision for realising the frequency up-conversion mechanism and ensure the size of the energy harvester is suitable for the limited space on the railway track. The frequency bandwidth of the energy harvester is broadened by utilizing the longitudinal and torsional oscillation of the designed plate springs which enable the system to have two adjacent natural frequencies. The mechanical transformer of the piezo stack transducer system is designed to achieve the required stress level under both the impact force caused by the collision motion and the inertial force generated by the random vibration of the rails. A finite element model (FEM) analysing the free vibration of the piezo stack transducer caused by the frequency up-conversion mechanism is developed to analyse the dynamic characteristics of the coupled system. Lab tests are carried out to validate the proposed FEM and evaluate the impact of different factors such as load resistance, acceleration, initial interval, plate spring, and pulse excitation on power generation. Experimental results show that the energy harvester has two resonant frequencies of 17 Hz and 20 Hz. The frequency up-conversion mechanism can convert this low-frequency vibration into the piezo stack transducer’s high resonant frequency vibration of 94 Hz. A maximum average power of 6.72 mW with a 1-mW-bandwidth of 15 Hz is obtained when actuated at 0.7 RMS g acceleration. • A piezo stack energy harvester for railway track vibration is designed, modelled and tested. • A compact design is proposed to enable the mechanical collision for realising the frequency up-conversion mechanism. • Two adjacent natural frequencies are achieved to broaden the frequency bandwidth. • The mechanical transformer is designed to achieve the required stress level under the impact force and inertial force. • A maximum average power of 6.72 mW with a 1-mW-bandwidth of 15 Hz is obtained when actuated at 0.7 RMS g acceleration.

Sustainable tunnel lighting system based on mechanical-regulated and soft-contact hybridized nanogenerator

Tunnel lighting consumes nearly 30 % of the energy in the whole infrastructure, so optimizing the lighting control strategy could significantly increase the energy utilization efficiency. However, there is still lack of an intelligent and cost-effective lighting control system. Here, we report a low-cost, intelligent, and self-powered tunnel lighting control system based on the mechanical-regulated and soft-contact hybridized nanogenerator (MS-HNG) as both the power supply and distributed traffic monitoring sensor. Benefited from the mechanical regulation and frequency up-conversion design, the MS-HNG can effectively convert the energy into electricity from intermittent stimulation of the moving vehicle and thus offers a maximum output power of 108 mW to transmit the traffic information wirelessly. The introducing of soft fur also endows HNG with excellent stability and durability, showing a negligible decrease in the output over 100,000 cycles. Moreover, an “illumination traveling with the vehicle” sustainable tunnel lighting system which could save energy by 72 % at a traffic volume of 20 veh/h compared with the traditional one is successfully demonstrated. This work may pave the way for industrial applications of nanogenerators and shows great potential in energy-efficient and intelligent transportation systems (ITS).

On the frequency up-conversion mechanism due to a soft stopper by the example of an electrostatic kinetic energy harvester

Micro- and meso-scale electrostatic energy harvesting systems have high efficiency at the higher-frequency part of the spectrum due to the natural frequencies of micro-structures lying over a range from hundreds of hertz to megahertz. However, many real-life applications related, in particular, to wearable systems, structural monitoring, or the Internet of Things, are characterized by low-frequency environmental forces. The main goal of this letter is to demonstrate that the placement of a stopper that limits the motion of the proof mass and causes soft impacts in an electrostatic kinetic energy harvester is responsible for an effect known as frequency up-conversion. This means that there is a significant response to “non-resonant” frequencies away from the natural frequency of the structure leading to effective energy conversion to the electrical domain. The concept summarizing this effect is presented and modeled, and an experiment carried out on a microscopic electrostatic harvester is presented to prove the concept.

Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of a Rotational Magnetic Couple Piezoelectric Energy Harvester.

With the rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT) and the popularity of wireless sensors, using internal permanent or rechargeable batteries as a power source will face a higher maintenance workload. Therefore, self-powered wireless sensors through environmental energy harvesting are becoming an important development trend. Among the many studies of energy harvesting, the research on rotational energy harvesting still has many shortcomings, such as rarely working effectively under low-frequency rotational motion or working in a narrow frequency band. In this article, a rotational magnetic couple piezoelectric energy harvester is proposed. Under the low-frequency excitation (<10 Hz) condition, the harvester can convert low-frequency rotational into high-frequency vibrational of the piezoelectric beam by frequency up-conversion, effectively increasing the working bandwidth (0.5–16 Hz) and improving the efficiency of low-speed rotational energy harvesting. In addition, when the excitation frequency is too high (>16 Hz), it can solve the condition that the piezoelectric beam cannot respond in time by frequency down-conversion. Therefore, the energy harvester still has a certain degree of energy harvesting ability (18–22 Hz and 29–31 Hz) under high-frequency conditions. Meanwhile, corresponding theoretical analyses and experimental verifications were carried out to investigate the dynamic characteristics of the harvester with different excitation and installation directions. The experimental results illustrate that the proposed energy harvester has a wider working bandwidth benefiting from the frequency up-conversion mechanism and frequency down-conversion mechanism. In addition, the forward beam will have a wider bandwidth than the inverse beam due to the softening effect. In addition, the maximum powers of the forward and inverse beams at 310 rpm (15.5 Hz) are 93.8 μW and 58.5 μW, respectively. The maximum powers of the two beams at 420 rpm (21 Hz) reached 177 μW and 85.2 μW, respectively. The self-powered requirement of micromechanical systems can be achieved. Furthermore, this study provides the theoretical and experimental basis for rotational energy harvesting.

Theoretical, numerical, and experimental studies of a frequency up-conversion piezoelectric energy harvester

This paper presents the study of a two-degree-of-freedom (2DoF) stacked piezoelectric energy harvester (SPEH). The high performance of the 2DoF SPEH is achieved by the frequency up-conversion mechanism, which is realized by introducing a mechanical limiter. A theoretical model of the 2DoF SPEH is developed. A piecewise linear function describes the impact interaction that incurs the frequency up-conversion phenomenon. The approximated analytical solution is derived using the averaging method. Moreover, an equivalent circuit model (ECM) is established to capture the dynamic characteristics of the SPEH. Experiments are conducted to validate the theoretical and ECM models. The effects of system parameters on the SPEH's output performance are investigated. Due to the impact-induced amplitude truncation effect, the operation bandwidth of the SPEH is substantially enlarged. For instance, the bandwidth was expanded to 6.3 Hz with a sponge gasket. The 2DoF SPEH can produce an instantaneous power with a peak amplitude of 521.6 mW under an excitation of 10.8 Hz with k = 0.098 N/mm. Based on the parametric study results, design guidelines to improve the system for better energy harvesting performance are discussed and summarized.

Numerical and experimental evaluation of the magnetic interaction for frequency up-conversion in piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters

The purpose of this work is to improve the modelling process for the application of permanent magnets in a frequency up-conversion (FuC) mechanism for piezoelectric energy harvesters. More specifically, the aim is to avoid the burdensome finite element analyses (FEA) in the framework of electromechanical devices design. The analytical calculations are compared with experimental tests conducted by an ad-hoc set up and with FEA. After investigations on the interaction, an application of FuC mechanism is proposed on a meso-scale case study in which a low frequency seismic mass (LFM) interacts non-linearly, due to magnetic field, with an high frequency piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH). Numerical simulations have been carried out in the time domain (step-by-step analysis) under a harmonic low-frequency input acceleration signal. The peculiar behavior, due to non-linear dynamics, is investigated in both the repulsive and the attractive configurations of the magnets. The results confirm the effectiveness of magnetic FuC and show that the repulsive case allows the device to recover a larger amount of energy than the attractive configuration.

Piezoelectric energy harvesting from rail track vibration using frequency up-conversion mechanism

Piezoelectric energy harvesting has great powering potential in railway applications, but current piezoelectric literature for rail track vibration mainly focuses on a single piezoelectric element or piezoelectric cantilever, whose output power is usually at the level of µW. In this work, a piezo stack energy harvester using the frequency up-conversion method with attractive magnetic force is proposed and experimentally validated for harvesting energy from rail track vibration. It consists of two parts, an inertial mass system and a piezo stack system. The frequency up-conversion mechanism is realised by allowing the inertial mass to attach and detach the piezo stack transducer periodically with the help of the attractive magnetic force. The attractive magnetic force contributes to the collision between the two systems, especially when the excitation frequency is near the resonant frequency. A theoretical model of the proposed energy harvester considering the colliding motion and magnetic force is established. A prototype is fabricated and can generate a peak power of 96.69 mW and average power of 2.59 mW at an input acceleration of 1 g applied at 9 Hz with an optimum load impedance of 200 Ω.

Rotational multi-beam energy harvester with up-conversion mechanism in an extremely low frequency scenario

We propose a novel frequency-up converting device in an extremely low frequency rotating scenario based on a multi-beam piezoelectric energy harvester and multiple impacts. The rotating multi-beam structure consists of a piezoelectric sheet added to a top beam, a large seismic mass added to a bottom beam and an elastic stop which can be eventually replaced by a buzzer. At half of the rotating cycle, the bottom beam impacts the top beam by means of a spring generating energy by a frequency up-conversion mechanism. At the other half of the cycle, the up and bottom beam separate from each other and the bottom beam impacts an elastic stop or a buzzer which are used to simultaneously recover the kinetic energy of the collision, generate energy (buzzer) and prevent possible damage to the structure. An analytical model that governs the electromechanical equations and the impact dynamics is proposed to provide a means to predict the generated output energy. The model is based on the Euler-Bernoulli structural theory for the beams and a piezoelectric nonlinear constitutive model. Two different energy generation possibilities are studied, depending on the selection of the elastic stop or the buzzer. When the elastic spring acts as stop, the collision between the bottom beam and the stop is more elastic. Replacing the spring stop with a piezo buzzer adds to the system an additional mechanism of energy conversion. By making several experimental tests, the analytical model is validated by computing the cumulated energy. The results demonstrate that the buzzer element significantly improves the harvested power when it replaces the elastic stop. To estimate the usable power of the device, rectifier circuits coupled to the piezo elements are built and test. The results show that in the case of the buzzer used as a stop, a rectified power that overcomes 6.4 times in average other previous designs is harvested in the range of 0.8–2.2 Hz over an electrical load of 10 kΩ. The amount of collected power is suitable for autonomous sensing of wind turbines of 30 kW with rotational speeds of between 50 and 150 rpm.

A Piezoelectric Wave Energy Harvester Using Plucking-Driven and Frequency Up-Conversion Mechanism

In this study, a plucking-driven piezoelectric wave energy harvester (PDPWEH) consisted of a buoy, a gear train frequency up-conversion mechanism, and an array of piezoelectric cantilever beams was developed. The gear train frequency up-conversion mechanism with compact components included a rack, three gears, and a geared cam provide less energy loss to improve electrical output. Six individual piezoelectric composite beams were plucked by geared cam to generate electrical power in the array of piezoelectric cantilever beams. A sol-gel method was used to create the piezoelectric composite beams. To investigate PDPWEH, a mathematical model based on the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory was derived. The developed PDPWEH was tested in a wave flume. The wave heights were set to 100 and 75 mm, the wave periods were set to 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 s. The maximum output voltage of the measured value was 12.4 V. The maximum RMS voltage was 5.01 V, which was measured by connecting to an external 200 kΩ resistive load. The maximum average electrical power was 125.5 μw.

A Piezoelectric Wave-Energy Converter Equipped with a Geared-Linkage-Based Frequency Up-Conversion Mechanism.

In this paper, a piezoelectric wave-energy converter (PWEC), consisting of a buoy, a frequency up-conversion mechanism, and a piezoelectric power-generator component, is developed. The frequency up-conversion mechanism consists of a gear train and geared-linkage mechanism, which converted lower frequencies of wave motion into higher frequencies of mechanical motion. The slider had a six-period displacement compared to the wave motion and was used to excite the piezoelectric power-generation component. Therefore, the operating frequency of the piezoelectric power-generation component was six times the frequency of the wave motion. The developed, flexible piezoelectric composite films of the generator component were used to generate electrical voltage. The piezoelectric film was composed of a copper/nickel foil as the substrate, lead–zirconium–titanium (PZT) material as the piezoelectric layer, and silver material as an upper-electrode layer. The sol-gel process was used to fabricate the PZT layer. The developed PWEC was tested in the wave flume at the Tainan Hydraulics Laboratory, Taiwan (THL). The maximum height and the minimum period were set to 100 mm and 1 s, respectively. The maximum voltage of the measured value was 2.8 V. The root-mean-square (RMS) voltage was 824 mV, which was measured through connection to an external 495 kΩ resistive load. The average electric power was 1.37 μW.

Nonlinear Dynamics of a Rotary Energy Harvester With a Double Frequency Up-Conversion Mechanism

Abstract This paper develops a mathematical model of a two degree-of-freedom piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) in which vibration is driven by disk swing motion. The proposed device converts slow mechanical rotation into piezoelectric vibration using gravity force and magnetic repelling force. The harvester consists of a disk and a piezoelectric cantilevered beam. The disk with an unbalanced mass swings on a rotating object (e.g., wind turbine blade) and two magnets attached to both the beam and the disk can transfer the kinetic energy of the disk to the beam without physical contact. The energy method is used to derive three coupled equations to model the motion of the disk, vibration of the beam, and the piezoelectric voltage output. The effect of harvester orientation on power generation performance is studied as the rotational speed changes, and the simulation results are experimentally verified. Possible application of this energy harvester to a power-sustainable sensor node for large-scale wind turbine blades monitoring is discussed.

Gathering energy from ultra-low-frequency human walking using a double-frequency up-conversion harvester in public squares

Conventional human walking energy harvesters suffer from low-frequency problems. A double-frequency up-conversion magnetostrictive energy harvester was proposed, analyzed, fabricated, and tested. The harvester is mainly composed of a gear rack and a multi-leaf cam. The rack acts as the first frequency up-conversion mechanism for low-frequency walking. The multi-leaf cam carries out the second frequency up-conversion operation. After the two steps, the low walking frequency is increased. A theoretical analysis of the energy harvester was conducted to find factors that influence its performance. A standard concrete block was proposed, which made the application of the energy harvester easy and fast. The energy harvester was fabricated and experiments were carried out. The ratio of the frequency up-conversion mechanism was 8.13. The maximum output voltage and output power of the harvester were 10.06 V (peak-to-peak) and 31.3 mW, respectively. The harvested energy could light up 100 light-emitting diodes (LEDs) at the same time. It could also power an electronic clock normally for more than 90 min. The proposed energy harvester can be applied for gathering low-frequency human walking energy in public squares.

Polymer-Based Piezoelectric Energy Harvester for Low-Frequency Vibration Using Frequency Up-Conversion Driven by Collision with a Flexible Beam

This paper reports a polymer-based piezoelectric vibration energy harvester using mechanical frequency up-conversion driven by collision with a flexible beam, targeting for low-frequency vibration (under 10 Hz). By driving the flexible beam with low-frequency, the beam periodically hits against the underlying impact-driven piezoelectric component and excites the free oscillation, i.e. frequency up-conversion. We verified the validity of the proposed method by FEM analysis and the proposed vibration energy harvester showed 32 μW at 9 Hz of excitation frequency.