Improved Flow-Induced Vibration Energy Harvester by Using Magnetic Force: An Experimental Study

Vibration energy harvesting has attracted considerable attention because of its application prospects for charging or powering micro-electro-mechanical system. Abundant hydrokinetic energy of water at low velocity is contained in the fluid environment, such as rivers and oceans, which are widely existing in nature. In this paper, a flow-induced piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH) with magnetic force enhancement, which is integrated by piezoelectric beam, circular cylinder bluff body and magnets, is proposed and experimental investigated. It could transfer the hydrokinetic energy, both the vortex-induced vibration and magnetic force excitation underwater, into electricity. First, the frequency sweep experiment of the piezoelectric cantilever beam is carried out to determine the resonance frequency where the effect of magnetic force on the vibration characteristic is obtained. Furthermore, the flow-induced vibration experiment platform is setup and the energy harvesting performance of the PVEH is investigated in detail. The effects of the magnet property, flow velocity and the magnetic poles distance on the vibration frequency and the acquisition voltage are demonstrated and discussed. The results show that it could improve the harvesting performance by introducing magnetic force. It has advantages in higher output voltage for the flow-induced PVEH, especially in low velocity water flow, when the flow velocity is 0.35 m/s, the PVEH under attractive magnetic force with magnetic distance of 20 mm scavenges the higher acquisition voltage of 5.2 V, which is increased by 225% than the PVEH with non-magnetic. The results can be applied to guide further fabrication process and optimized design of the proposed flow-induced PVEH underwater with low flow velocity.