Broadband Vibrational Energy Harvesting

能量收集器是一种很有前途的技术，用于从环境或设备的操作中捕获有用的能量。 这项研究将开发和实现一种新型的能量采集器设计，用于捕获具有广泛环境振动频谱的环境中的振动能量。 该设计使用柔性陶瓷压电元件，当机械应变时产生电力，这些元件在平衡时处于屈曲状态。 初步实验结果表明，具有这种设计的收割机可以在宽范围的强制频率上输出可观的功率，这与基于线性机械原理的振动能量的收割机不同，所述线性机械原理的振动能量的收割机仅在主导环境振动频率接近收割机的共振频率时才给出可观的响应。 拟议的工作包括该设备的周期性和随机强迫的实验表征，加上低维和高维模型的发展，将进行理论和计算分析。 将特别注意的参数和强迫制度，有混沌响应，因为初步的实验结果表明，这是能量收集可以最大化。 将确定响应对参数的依赖性，并使用多参数优化来确定能量收集优化的设备的参数值。振动能量收集器在产生大量振动能量的各种环境中具有潜在的应用，例如汽车，火车，飞机，船只，机械和建筑物。能量采集器可以为这些系统的辅助功能提供动力，例如用于系统监控的数据的无线传输。此外，许多机械和电子系统（诸如自主车辆和传感器网络）需要大容量电池和/或电源来用于其操作。 如果能量采集器可以用于为这样的系统提供完整的或补充的电力，则它们可以以降低的成本和更换电池的不便来运行。 这项工作还将为压电振动能量采集器开发一个严格的建模框架，这将有利于在压电和机械效应都很重要的这一领域和其他领域工作的其他研究人员。

Energy harvesters are a promising technology for capturing useful energy from the environment or a device's operation. This research will develop and implement a novel energy harvester design for capturing vibrational energy in environments with a broad ambient vibration frequency spectrum. The design uses flexible ceramic piezoelectric elements that produce electricity when mechanically strained, which are in a buckled state at equilibrium. Preliminary experimental results show that a harvester with this design can output appreciable power over a broad range of forcing frequencies, unlike harvesters of vibrational energy based on linear mechanical principles which only give appreciable response if the dominant ambient vibration frequency is close to the resonance frequency of the harvester. The proposed work includes the experimental characterization of this device for periodic and stochastic forcing, plus the development of low- and high-dimensional models that will be analyzed theoretically and computationally. Particular attention will be paid to parameter and forcing regimes for which there is chaotic response, since the preliminary experimental results suggest that this is where the energy harvesting could be maximized. The dependence of the response on parameters will be determined, and multiparameter optimization will be used to identify parameter values for the device for which the energy harvesting is optimized.Vibrational energy harvesters have potential application in a variety of environments which produce considerable vibrational energy, such as automobiles, trains, aircraft, watercraft, machinery, and buildings. Energy harvesters could power auxiliary functions for such systems, for example the wireless transmission of data for system monitoring. Furthermore, many mechanical and electronic systems such as autonomous vehicles and sensor networks require bulky batteries and/or power supplies for their operation. If energy harvesters could be used to provide complete or supplementary power for such systems, they could function with reduced cost and inconvenience of replacing their batteries. This work will also develop a rigorous modeling framework for piezoelectric vibrational energy harvesters which will be beneficial for other researchers working in this and other areas for which both piezoelectric and mechanical effects are important.