Analysis of harvesting energy from mistuned multiple harvesters with and without coupling

Malaji, P.V., Ali, S.F., Adhikari, S. and Friswell, M.I. (2016) Analysis of harvesting energy from mistuned multiple harvesters with and without coupling. Procedia Engineering, 144, pp. 621-628. (doi: 10.1016/j.proeng.2016.05.052)

Abstract

Energy harvesting has received a lot of attention in the recent past. At present a single device does not harvested energy enough to power up an electronic sensors. In order to increase the power output multiple identical harvesters are used. When multiple harvesters are used, they bring in non-uniformity in their physical parameters due to variability during manufacturing or even during deployment. Therefore, ‘n’ numbers of harvesters do not necessary produce ‘n’ times the harvested power of a single device. The variability in parameters is less enough to be coined as mistuning. In this paper, an analysis of multiple energy harvesters is studied. The harvesters are assumed to show mistuning. The study is further extended to understand the effect of mechanical coupling between the harvesters. For simplification, pendulums are considered as the harvesters, with magnetic tip masses for the electromagnetic energy harvesting. Mistuning is achieved by varying the length of the pendulums. A generalized mathematical model for n coupled harvesters with mistuning is developed. Simulations are performed with the number of harvesters varying from 2 to 6 with ±1% non-repetitive mistuning in the lengths of the harvesters, and a comparison of the power harvested between mechanically coupled and uncoupled harvesters is presented.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Conference paper first presented at 12th International Conference on Vibration Problems (ICOVP 2015), Guwahati, India, 14-17 Dec 2015.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Adhikari, Professor Sondipon
• Authors: Malaji, P.V., Ali, S.F., Adhikari, S., and Friswell, M.I.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Infrastructure and Environment
• Journal Name: Procedia Engineering
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 1877-7058
• Published Online: 25 May 2016
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2016 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Procedia Engineering 144: 621-628
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License