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Energy Harvesting & Design Optimization Lab.

University of Maryland Baltimore County, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

 

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1. Vibration Energy Harvester toward Broadband/Multimodal Capability:

Vibration energy harvesting (EH) has been initiated from linear vibration principle, which utilizes a single frequency to obtain power. Unfortunately, linear energy harvesters do not yield appreciable power because of random nature of vibration in the real world. In order to overcome the weakness of linear harvesters and account for the arbitrary nature of vibration, multiple nonlinear vibration energy harvesters have been developed and studied. This research presents parametric study on the design of nonlinear vibration EH device that utilizes snap-through mechanism to obtain high power from broadband excitation frequency. The device is comprised of a cantilever beam with curved shell implemented in the middle of the beam. When vibrating, the curved shell causes snap-through buckling and the nature of vibration becomes nonlinear. For practical purposes, a broadband frequency vibration input is used to optimize the energy harvester design. Design variables are assigned and optimized in order to create optimal design of the energy harvester, which maximizes power output. The presented design will have positive effect by providing means to practically capturing wasted vibration energy in consideration of its broadband frequency utilization.

EDLab performs researches on vibration energy harvester (including piezoelectric and electromagnetic) with consideration of realistic loading (e.g. tire impact loading, bimodal vibration from railroad, various kinetic energy from large scale structures and human).

Piezoelectric harvester for tire pressure monitoring sensor (TPMS) - design considering variable speed

Design optimization of electromagnetic linear harvester for backpack applications

Design optimization of railrad energy harvester (leaf spring) considering railroad vibration

Vibration/kinetic energy harvesting from wind turbine blade

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Energy Harvesting & Design Optimization Lab.

University of Maryland Baltimore County, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD, 21250

© 2013