Nonlinear piezomagnetoelastic harvester array for broadband energy harvesting

This article proposes an array of nonlinear piezomagnetoelastic energy harvesters (NPEHs) for scavenging electrical energy from broadband vibrations with low amplitudes (2 m/s2). The array consists of monostable NPEHs combined to generate useful power output (∼100 μW) over wide bandwidth. The nonlinearity in each of the NPEHs is induced by the magnetic interaction between an embedded magnet in the tip mass of cantilever and a fixed magnet clamped to the rigid platform. The dynamic responses of two NPEHs, one with attractive configuration and the other with repulsive configuration, are combined to achieve a bandwidth of 3.3 Hz at a power level of 100 μW. A parametric study is carried out to obtain the gap distances between the magnets to achieve wide bandwidth. Experiments are performed to validate the proposed idea, the theoretical predictions, and to demonstrate the advantage of array of NPEHs over the array of linear piezoelectric energy harvesters (LPEHs). The experiments have clearly shown the advantage of NPEH array over its linear counterpart under both harmonic and random excitations. Approximately, 100% increase in the operation bandwidth is achieved by the NPEH array at harmonic excitation level of 2 m/s2. The NPEH array exhibits up to 80% improvement in the accumulated energy under random excitation when compared with the LPEH array. Furthermore, the performance of NPEH array with series and parallel connections between the individual harvesters using standard AC/DC interface circuits is also investigated and compared with its linear counterpart.