Verification of kinetic piezoelectric energy harvesting model with periodic and chaotic responses

This paper deals with advanced techniques of transducing kinetic energy of vibration into useful electricity. It is a well-known fact that the behavior of nonlinear piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters is complex and shows rich dynamics and variability. A nonlinear stiffness is created by additional permanent magnets with separation distance which allows for many qualitatively different types of system behaviour including chaotic operation. A single-degree-of-freedom model of such a nonlinear energy harvesting device is developed and numerical simulations are used to quantify the nonlinearity as well as predict the system behaviour for various design configurations. We theoretically predict the bifurcation response for such a multidisciplinary system. The effect of input base acceleration on bifurcation diagrams is presented. A test rig was developed so that experimental bifurcation diagrams could be made and compared with simulations. The results show that the investigated energy harvester has the potential to be effectively used for powering low-powered sensing devices by its adaptable design.