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Title: A dual electromagnetic array with intrinsic frequency up-conversion for broadband vibrational energy harvesting

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5083910· OSTI ID:1613640

This letter proposes a dual electromagnetic array to transform low frequency rectilinear vibrations into electricity with frequency up-conversion. The free of mechanical contact harvester consists of a rectilinear oscillator (RLO) and an array of two identical rotary oscillators (RTO). The RTO includes a rotor and a stator. The rotor has eight cubic magnets distributed centrosymmetrically, and the stator has eight coils. Under rectilinear vibrational excitations, the RLO drives the rotor of the RTO to rotate through magnetic torque acting on the rotors. A slight fluctuation of the rectilinear motion can lead to a great change of torque, which converts the low frequency vibrations into high frequency rotational motions. By adopting the frequency up-conversion mechanism, a high instantaneous output voltage is produced and maintained from 3.0 Hz to 9.5 Hz. Experiments show that with the dual rotor array, the output power is improved and the RLO is able to oscillate at its resonance even if the input frequency is greater than its resonant frequency, which implies a potential solution to suppress and harvest vibration energy during an earthquake if properly arraying multiple rotors. Under the excitation of 0.5 g and 4.0 Hz, the harvester can provide a stable DC power of 3.1 mW after AC-DC conversion.

Research Organization:
State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY (United States); Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Texas A & M Engineering Experiment Station
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR)
Grant/Contract Number:
AR0000531; AR0000945; N000141410230
OSTI ID:
1613640
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 114, Issue 5; ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 13 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (1)

A Direction Self-Tuning Two-Dimensional Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester journal December 2019