Energy Harvesting from Nonlinear Vibration Absorbers

Nonlinear vibration absorbers are effective over a wider frequency band but the parameters defining the absorber should be selected carefully because the nonlinear systems exhibit solutions of different nature. In this work, a harmonically excited single degree of freedom system with a nonlinear absorber having hardening Duffing nonlinearity and a piezoelectric energy harvesting mechanism is considered. The equations of motion are numerically integrated to understand the nonlinear dynamics of the system. The periodic solutions are obtained by multi harmonic balance method. It is observed that proper selection of the system parameters is necessary for reducing the vibration amplitude of the primary system and enhancing the energy harvested from the secondary system. A multi objective optimization based on genetic algorithm is used to optimize the system parameters for reduction in the amplitude of the primary system and enhancement of the energy harvested from the secondary system.