Session: VIB-04-01: Energy Harvesting I

Paper Number: 89948

89948 - Vibration Energy Harvester With Piecewise Linear Nonlinear Oscillator and Controllable Gap Size 

Recently, vibration energy harvesting has been seen as a viable energy source to provide for our energy dependent society. Researchers have studied systems ranging from civil structures like bridges to biomechanical systems including human motion as potential sources of vibration energy. In this work, a bench-top system of a piecewise-linear (PWL) nonlinear vibration harvester is studied. A similar idealized model of the harvester was previously looked at numerically, and in this work the method is adjusted to handle physical systems to construct a realistic harvester design. With the physically realizable harvester design, the resonant frequency of the system is able to be tuned by changing the gap size between the oscillator and mechanical stopper, ensuring optimal performance over a broad frequency range. Current nonlinear harvester designs show decreased performance at certain excitation conditions, but this design overcomes these issues while also still maintaining the performance of a linear harvester at resonance. In this investigation, the system is tested at various excitation conditions and gap sizes and the system dynamics and the displacement transmissibility is monitored. These results are then compared to the numerical simulation to illustrate the design's effectiveness. After the experimental procedure, it is shown that the bench top model follows the expected behavior from the computational tool.

Presenting Author: Jacob Veney The Ohio State University

Presenting Author Biography: Jacob is currently student in the combined BS/MS program at Ohio State. He has been working in the Nonlinear Dynamics and Vibrations lab since 2020. Outside of the classroom Jacob participates in engineering outreach through the TEK-8 program and the Engineering Hometown Ambassadors program.

Authors:

Jacob Veney The Ohio State University
Kiran D'souza The Ohio State University