Regular and chaotic vibration in a piezoelectric energy harvester

We examine regular and chaotic responses of a vibrational energy harvester composed of a vertical beam and a tip mass. The beam is excited horizontally by a harmonic inertial force while mechanical vibrational energy is converted to electrical power through a piezoelectric patch. The mechanical resonator can be described by single or double well potentials depending on the gravity force from the tip mass. By changing the tip mass we examine bifurcations from single well oscillations, to regular and chaotic vibrations between the potential wells. The appearance of chaotic responses in the energy harvesting system is illustrated by the bifurcation diagram, the corresponding Fourier spectra, the phase portraits, and is confirmed by the 0–1 test. The appearance of chaotic vibrations reduces the level of harvested energy

Nonlinear characterization of a bistable energy harvester dynamical system

International audienceThis chapter explores the nonlinear dynamics of a piezo-magneto-elastic bistable energy device system regards the influence of external forcing parameters influence on system response. Time series, Poincaré maps, phase space trajectories, and bifurcation diagrams are employed in order to reveals system dynamics complexity and nonlinear effects, such as chaos incidence and hysteresis