Affiliations: [a] State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China | [b] School of Information and Computer Engineering, Pingxiang University, Pingxiang, China | [c] Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Renwen Chen, State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 29 Yudao Street, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210016, China. E-mail: rwchen@nuaa.edu.cn
Abstract: A bistable magnetoelectric vibration energy harvester using nonlinear magnetic force is proposed. It consists of a planar spring, a magnetoelectric transducer with an annular magnetic circuit, and a coil assembly with a ferrite bobbin inside. Based on these, a nonlinear magnetic force between the ferrite bobbin and permanent magnet arrays can be generated when the relative displacement changes, which can broaden the operating frequency bandwidth of the harvester. The nonlinear magnetic force makes the harvester demonstrate some special dynamic behaviors including the inter-well and chaotic motions, which are performed by the finite element analysis. And, the experimental validations are also carried to verify the performance of the proposed harvester. The results show that the output power can reach 10 mW in a relatively wide operating frequency range with a 90 Ω resistance load under 1 g harmonic excitation. In addition, a real vehicle road’s vibration signals from a highway bridge are acquired to estimate the practical energy harvesting performance of the harvester. The results show that the RMS output voltage and load power of the harvester can reach 3.16 V and 110.95 mW under 10× road spectrum excitations, respectively.
Keywords: Vibration energy harvester, broadband, magneto electric, nonlinear magnetic force, bistable
