Theoretical and Experimental Study of Nonlinear and Electro-Magneto-Mechanical-Based Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester

This paper presents a folded nonlinear electro-magneto-mechanical (EMM) vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvester system, which is built on the cantilevered beam structure and consists of one host beam and two substrate plates. The performance of the linearity and nonlinearity to the proposed EMM system is evaluated and compared. Moreover, the voltage response in time history and the phase portrait are studied under an external rectifier circuit with a resistor. The results show that the nonlinearity of the reported EMM system changes the coherent resonance vibration mode from single to double under a harmonic base excitation within the frequency range of 20 Hz-50 Hz. Meanwhile, the substrate plate D contributes more averaged voltage output at a lower frequency while the substrate plate A contributes the voltage output at the relatively higher frequency for the nonlinear EMM system. The experimental study indicates that the proposed nonlinear EMM vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvester can yield a total voltage of 8.133 V@35.53 Hz while the baseline structure only produces 1.724 V@38.81 Hz. In addition, the bandwidth range of high-power output is enlarged by the nonlinear EMM system, which makes this device more flexible and applicable to absorb the wasted vibration energy generated by industrial machines and public facilities.