Toward energy harvesting using active materials and conversion improvement by nonlinear processing

TLDR

SSH is a nonlinear technique derived from SSD, originally developed to mitigate vibration damping in mechanical structures. The study introduces a new method for generating electrical energy from mechanically excited piezoelectric materials via a nonlinear process. The method employs mechanically excited piezoelectric materials coupled with a nonlinear processing scheme. The technique boosts electromechanical conversion, achieving over 900% higher harvested power than standard methods, and works at both resonant and off‑resonant excitations.

Abstract

This paper presents a new technique of electrical energy generation using mechanically excited piezoelectric materials and a nonlinear process. This technique, called synchronized switch harvesting (SSH), is derived from the synchronized switch damping (SSD), which is a nonlinear technique previously developed to address the problem of vibration damping on mechanical structures. This technique results in a significant increase of the electromechanical conversion capability of piezoelectric materials. Comparatively with standard technique, the electrical harvested power may be increased above 900%. The performance of the nonlinear processing is demonstrated on structures excited at their resonance frequency as well as out of resonance.