Incorporating piezoelectric energy harvester in tunable vibration absorber for application in multi-modal vibration reduction of a platform structure

Tunable vibration absorber is an effective device to reduce the vibration of structure subjected to harmonic excitation. The vibration energy is transferred mostly to the absorber when the natural frequency of the absorber is tuned to the excitation frequency. In this study, a piezoelectric (PZT) transducer was incorporated into the absorber in order to harvest the vibration energy and still alleviate the vibration of a platform structure. The tuning in dynamic characteristics of the absorber was facilitated by controlling its tip mass. The design formulation of the absorber was presented with a single degree-of-freedom (SDOF) model having the equivalent parameters. In the meantime, an optimal electric load resistor was determined to maximize the power output from the PZT transducer. The experimental measurement validated the SDOF model with good accuracy both in the vibration response and the output electric voltage. Finally, the absorber was installed on a platform structure to investigate its vibration reduction and energy harvesting capability for the external disturbance frequency covering certain frequency span. With three resonance modes of the platform studied, the absorber was able to reduce more than 80% of its original vibration and harvest several folds of electric power comparing with the untuned absorber. Although the performance in vibration reduction was slightly influenced (<6%), the great increase in the electric energy harvested revealed the absorber design a good potential toward self-powered sensor or actuator applications.