Energy harvesting from an exercise machine

• Main Author: Hoon, Kai Ming
• Other Authors: Wong Kin Shun, Terence
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/74693
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In modern day gyms, machines such as treadmills, rowing machines and elliptical are essentials and will always be used by users trying to burn off calories by exerting and producing energy which are being dissipated out primarily as heat. However, if capturing of this energy is made possible from the repetitive motions through their workouts, it can be use as an alternative source of energy other than that being produced by fossil fuels. This clean sustainable energy can then be used to power up other electrical devices such as LEDs or even charging up a phone battery. This process of capturing, converting and storing of the clean energy is known as energy harvesting. This project will look into the usage of piezoelectric transducer elements to harvest the energy from the gym equipments when in used. The goal is to construct a device that require no further modification on existing gym equipments, making it user friendly and cost efficient. The energy harvesting system is being constructed and been through experiments to test its feasibility as an alternative source of energy as well as a method of energy harvesting and the result is astonishing. Piezoelectric transducer elements were acquired and various experiments were conducted to determine the most ideal electrical configuration to achieve optimum energy harvesting. According to the experiment findings, the energy harvesting system is finalized and it is incorporated of various elements such as piezoelectric elements, used to generate electrical energy from mechanical stresses, a full-wave rectifier, used to convert the alternative current (AC) into direct current (DC) and super capacitor, used to store the converted energy. The energy harvesting system has been put to test after construction was completed and the output power has been recorded. Unfortunately, result shows that the quantity of energy harvested was insufficient and is not suitable as a stand-alone. However, by utilizing the system in a higher human crowd density locations and by connecting multiple of such system together, forming an energy harvester, makes it feasible. This project was successful in creating an energy harvesting system as a alternative source of energy.