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Smart Structures and Systems Volume 18, Number 3, September 2016 , pages 449-470 DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/sss.2016.18.3.449 |
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Electromagnetic energy harvesting from structural vibrations during earthquakes |
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Wenai Shen, Songye Zhu, Hongping Zhu and You-lin Xu
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| Abstract | ||
| Energy harvesting is an emerging technique that extracts energy from surrounding environments to power low-power devices. For example, it can potentially provide sustainable energy for wireless sensing networks (WSNs) or structural control systems in civil engineering applications. This paper presents a comprehensive study on harvesting energy from earthquake-induced structural vibrations, which is typically of low frequency, to power WSNs. A macroscale pendulum-type electromagnetic harvester (MPEH) is proposed, analyzed and experimentally validated. The presented predictive model describes output power dependence with mass, efficiency and the power spectral density of base acceleration, providing a simple tool to estimate harvested energy. A series of shaking table tests in which a single-storey steel frame model equipped with a MPEH has been carried out under earthquake excitations. Three types of energy harvesting circuits, namely, a resistor circuit, a standard energy harvesting circuit (SEHC) and a voltage-mode controlled buck-boost converter were used for comparative study. In ideal cases, i.e., resistor circuit cases, the maximum electric energy of 8.72 J was harvested with the efficiency of 35.3%. In practical cases, the maximum electric energy of 4.67 J was extracted via the buck-boost converter under the same conditions. The predictive model on output power and harvested energy has been validated by the test data. | ||
| Key Words | ||
| vibration energy harvesting; earthquake; circuit; predictive model; low frequency; shaking table test | ||
| Address | ||
| Wenai Shen and Hongping Zhu: School of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China Songye Zhu and You-lin Xu: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong | ||