Impacts of stopper type and material on the broadband characteristics and performance of energy harvesters

Abstract

Exploiting nonlinear impact force induced by a stopper has been widely proposed to broaden the bandwidth of energy harvesters from mechanical vibrations, but the previous studies just directly employed the stopper and did not consider the effect of inherent factors of the stopper like its type and material. This letter devotes to efficiently utilize the stopper to broaden the resonance region of the energy harvester mainly from perspective of stopper type and material. Four stopper types are taken into account including the stopper with rigid and soft materials and the spring stopper. Experimental results show that two sides followed stopper type can greatly increase the bandwidth which is much better than other considered types. Importantly, using the stopper with soft materials or the spring stopper is followed by a wider resonance region and a higher output voltage of the energy harvester compared to that with rigid materials. Moreover, agreements between theoretical predictions and experimental measurements indicate the feasibility of using the trilinear spring model to describe the nonlinear impact force which is determined by stopper type and material. The present study delivers to essentially improve the output performance of energy harvesters by selecting the efficient stopper.