A comprehensive review on the state-of-the-art of piezoelectric energy harvesting

Vibration energy harvesting in automotive suspension system: A detailed review

Mechanical modulations for enhancing energy harvesting: Principles, methods and applications

The last decade has witnessed significant advances in energy harvesting technology for the realization of self-charging electronics and self-powered wireless sensor nodes (WSNs). To conquer the energy-insufficiency issue of a single energy harvester, hybrid energy harvesting systems have been proposed in recent years. Hybrid harvesting includes not only scavenging energy from multiple sources, but also converting energy into electricity by multiple types of transduction mechanisms. A reasonable hybridization of multiple energy conversion mechanisms not only improves the space utilization efficiency but can also boost the power output significantly. Given the continuously growing trend of hybrid energy harvesting technology, herein we present a comprehensive review of recent progress and representative works, especially focusing on vibrational and thermal energy harvesters which play the dominant role in hybrid energy harvesting. The working principles and typical configurations for piezoelectric, electromagnetic, triboelectric, thermoelectric and pyroelectric transduction effects are briefly introduced. On this basis, a variety of hybrid energy harvesting systems, including mechanisms, configurations, output performance and advantages, are elaborated. Comparisons and perspectives on the effectiveness of hybrid vibrational and thermal harvesters are provided. A variety of potential application prospects of the hybrid systems are discussed, including infrastructure health monitoring, industry condition monitoring, smart transportation, human healthcare monitoring, marine monitoring systems, and aerospace engineering, towards the future Internet-of-Things (IoT) era.

Hybrid energy harvesting technology: From materials, structural design, system integration to applications

Rotational energy harvesting for self-powered sensing

In this paper, a new-type of mechanical-motion-rectifier-based energy harvesting shock absorber using a ball-screw mechanism and two one-way clutches is proposed to replace conventional oil dampers in vehicle suspensions. The proposed energy-harvesting shock absorber can work as a controllable shock absorber as well as an energy harvester. The challenge to harvest energy from reciprocating suspension vibration is solved by integrating a mechanical motion rectifier in the proposed design, which can convert reciprocating vibration into unidirectional rotation of a generator. As a result, the proposed shock absorber achieves high energy-harvesting efficiency by enabling the generator to rotate at a relatively steady speed during irregular vibrations and improves system reliability by reducing impact forces in transmission gears. In addition, the backlash of the proposed shock absorber is significantly reduced due to the use of the ball-screw mechanism, which further increases transmission durability and efficiency. Lab and field tests are carried out to experimentally characterize the proposed energy-harvesting shock absorber. The field testing results show that, when the modified vehicle is driven on a paved road at 40 mph, the proposed energy-harvesting shock absorber is able to reduce the root-mean-square value of chassis acceleration by 11.12% over the oil shock absorber and simultaneously harvest an average power of 13.3 W for a representative period of 8 s.

Design, Modeling, Lab, and Field Tests of a Mechanical-Motion-Rectifier-Based Energy Harvester Using a Ball-Screw Mechanism

Hydraulic electromagnetic energy-harvesting shock absorbers (HESAs) have been proposed recently, with the purpose to mitigate the vibration of vehicle suspensions and also recover the vibration energy traditionally dissipated by oil dampers. This paper designs an HESA prototype for heavy vehicles and creates a dynamic modeling to study its characteristics. The model shows that the HESA's output force can be decomposed into the electric damping force, friction damping force, the inertia force, and the accumulator force. Based on the modeling, the counteracting effect between the accumulator force and the inertia force is explained, and the influences of the parameters are analyzed. Simulations are conducted to investigate the effects of the high-pressure accumulator and the inertia on the regenerative voltage. Experiments are also carried out to study the characteristics of vibration damping and energy harvesting. Results show that the damping coefficient of the proposed HESA ranges from 32 to 91 kNs/m, which covers most of the damping range of 25–50 kNs/m for typical heavy-duty trucks and 15–80 kNs/m for railway freight vehicles. The average regenerative power reaches 220 W and the corresponding hydraulic efficiency reaches 30%, at a vibration input of 3 Hz frequency and 7 mm amplitude. Moreover, the influences of different hydraulic components on the hydraulic efficiency are also experimentally studied in order to guide the future design of HESAs.

Modeling and Experiments of a Hydraulic Electromagnetic Energy-Harvesting Shock Absorber

Traditional shock absorbers provide favourable ride comfort and road handling by dissipating the suspension vibration energy into heat waste. In order to harvest this dissipated energy and improve the vehicle fuel efficiency, many energy-harvesting shock absorbers (EHSAs) have been proposed in recent years. Among them, two types of EHSAs have attracted much attention. One is a traditional EHSA which converts the oscillatory vibration into bidirectional rotation using rack-pinion, ball-screw or other mechanisms. The other EHSA is equipped with a mechanical motion rectifier (MMR) that transforms the bidirectional vibration into unidirectional rotation. Hereinafter, they are referred to as NonMMR-EHSA and MMR-EHSA, respectively. This paper compares their performances with the corresponding traditional shock absorber by using closed-form analysis and numerical simulations on various types of vehicles, including passenger cars, buses and trucks. Results suggest that MMR-EHSA provides better ride perfor...

Yilun Liu

Papers

Vibration energy harvesting in automotive suspension system: A detailed review

Design, Modeling, Lab, and Field Tests of a Mechanical-Motion-Rectifier-Based Energy Harvester Using a Ball-Screw Mechanism

Modeling and Experiments of a Hydraulic Electromagnetic Energy-Harvesting Shock Absorber

Performance evaluation and parameter sensitivity of energy-harvesting shock absorbers on different vehicles

Mixed Skyhook and Power-Driven-Damper: A New Low-Jerk Semi-Active Suspension Control Based on Power Flow Analysis