Nonlinear PEH array for broadband energy harvesting

• Main Author: Zhao, Tian
• Other Authors: Yang Yaowen
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/65785
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

To better cater to the need on power resource of remote electronics and wireless sensors, harvesting energy from surrounding ambient environment is believed to be a promising solution and attracts lots of researching attention. Proposed harvester utilizes piezoelectric effect of material to convert vibration energy into electricity. To improve the efficiency of energy harvester, special effort is paid to broaden the bandwidth because the vibration source in ambient environment scattered over a wide frequency range. Many techniques such as multi-modal, oscillator arrays, active and passive tuning and nonlinear techniques have been used for broadband energy harvesting. Hence, this study proposed a nonlinear piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) array which utilizes nonlinear oscillation technique. The proposed PEH consists of array of alumina cantilever beams which have a magnet embedded in the tip masses at their free end. Stationary magnets were carefully placed to interact with them. The specification of PEH was adjusted so that output from each beam could match up with another. The behavior of nonlinear PEH array was investigated through harmonic vibration test including both forward direction sweep and backward direction sweep. Later, optimum resistance is determined and power output from PEH was calculated. Furthermore, advantages of proposed PEH were obtained by comparing with linear PEH array. Based on the analysis of experiment data, it was concluded that proposed PEH was able to be functional over a much wider vibration frequency range compared with linear array.