Vibration Energy Harvesting from Cantilever Beam Using Macro Fiber Composite Material

Harvesting energy from vibrations is an alluring source for small-scale devices like batteries and small sensors. Vibration-based energy harvesting is a technique to scavenge energy from environmental vibrations. In this paper, Macro Fiber Composite (MFC) patch adhered to the cantilever beams is used for harvesting energy. The major objective of this paper is to increase the relative displacement of the tip of the cantilever beam with respect to its support so as to maximize the amount of energy to be harvested. An experimental setup is designed and fabricated to harvest vibrational energy in a wide range of frequency source. The setup is designed in such a way that the natural frequencies can be varied and a desired natural frequency can be tuned to the excitation frequency so as to increase the amplitude of oscillations of the cantilever beams. It uses magnets and the application of an increasing axial force on the simply supported beam so that multiple variations of the configurations can be tested, by imposing and superimposing the different forces acting on the cantilever beams, thus helping to navigate how the setup will perform under different circumstances. The use of Macro Fiber Composites in piezoelectric harvesting offers advantages such as improved mechanical properties, flexibility, and scalability compared to traditional piezoelectric materials. The experiments are conducted on two sets of cantilever beams, one with the MFC patch adhered to it, and the other set is to analyze the effect of different system parameters on the relative displacement amplitude of oscillations of the cantilever beams. The relative displacement amplitude of a cantilever beam is further increased by a set of attracting magnets, thus creating a bistable condition for the cantilever beam.