An electromagnetic vibro-impact nonlinear energy sink for simultaneous vibration suppression and energy harvesting in vortex-induced vibrations

An electromagnetic vibro-impact nonlinear energy sink (EM-VINES) is proposed in the application of vortex-induced vibration, for both purpose of vibration suppression and energy harvesting. The considered system consists of a cylinder-like bluff body subject to an oncoming flow, coupled to a magnet attachment moving in coil of gap enclosure. The fluid–structure interaction is treated using the classical Van der Pol oscillator model, and the non-smooth dynamics is formulated in a measure differential complementarity problem adapted with a Moreau–Jean time integration scheme. Comprehensive analyses are then conducted concerning the targeted energy transfer mechanism, as well as the internal competition of the energy flow. A performance indicator is defined over the lock-in region, to obtain the optimal balance between vibration suppression and energy harvesting. It is found that when the system is working in a strongly modulated regime with less than 2 impacts per cycle, a fast-scale targeted energy transfer could be activated over the whole lock-in region, making the EM-VINES behave efficiently for both vibration suppression and energy harvesting in the application of vortex-induced vibrations.