A new type of energy harvester for traffic induced bridge vibrations

Master thesis (2023)

Authors

M.J.N. van den Bergh Mechanical Engineering

Contributors

J.F.L. Goosen Computational Design and Mechanics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (supervisor 1)
A.G. Dunning (supervisor 2)
Faculty
Mechanical Engineering
Copyright: © 2023 Michael van den Bergh
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Published Date

18-01-2023

Language

English

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Faculty

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Energy harvesters subtract energy from their surroundings and convert this to electrical energy. Even though energy output is generally low, energy harvesters can offer great value by offering the possibility of self-sustaining devices, combined with the developments in low power semiconductors. Many examples can be found of applications that would benefit from energy harvesting. Not for all of these, suitable harvesters have been designed. Research has concluded that lacking performance of vibration energy harvesters (VEH) in the application fields of human wearables and remote sensing is the main hurdle in the widespread implementation. One application within remote sensing is wireless sensor nodes for monitoring the health of buildings and infrastructure, such as bridges.

For the company Kinergizer, a feasibility study has been performed in this research for a new type of VEH for traffic induced bridge vibrations. Challenges lay in the intermittent character of the vibrations, because many VEH are resonant based, combined with low amplitudes and accelerations. In the performed study, a VEH design is presented for these vibrations, a mathematical of the dynamics has been made and a proof-of-concept is build which is tested under repeatable (harmonic and shocks) accelerations and under bridge-like conditions.

With the tested system parameters, the mechanism is able to harvest energy from the repeatable tests, but not from the bridge-like excitations. Further research is needed to determine whether, with suggested alterations, the presented working mechanism might be able to.