Hybrid energy harvesting from wind and vibration

• Main Author: Gan, Kenneth Jing-Han
• Other Authors: Yang Yaowen
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering::Structures and design
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/68027
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Just as one would go for regular check-ups, structural health monitoring is essential for any structure to determine its structural health. Such monitoring is crucial to ensure that the said structure is still structurally sound and is not at risk of collapsing. Sensors installed in strategic locations in structures are used to carry out such monitoring. Installation had become much less complex with the help of wireless sensors in place of wired ones. However, these wireless sensors relied heavily on limited life batteries which require regular replacements. Being located strategically, some sensors are found in extremely inaccessible parts of the structure which would render battery replacement a very tedious process. Much research had been done on making use of alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and vibration energy for large scale harvesting. With the presence of multiple sources of natural energy amongst structures, they could serve as a means of enabling wireless sensors to be self-powered. Commonly found in buildings would be a combination of wind and vibration energy, for example from vehicles crossing bridges or tunnels. This study will explore the various effects of hybrid energy harvesting involving the combination mentioned above. An efficient harvester could prove to be yet another step in increasing the efficiency of structural health monitoring. This study strives to maximise the abundant energy available from the environment by designing an energy harvester which allows a higher output to be obtained from a combination of vibration and wind energy. The performance of harvesters with different strength of stiffness non-linearity will be compared with that of a linear harvester to investigate its effect on the magnitude of voltage output as well as bandwidth of high voltage output.