Vibration-based energy harvesting with essential nonlinearities

The implementation of energy harvesting devices enables and extends the operational capabilities of a wide variety of devices, including portable electronics and inaccessible sensors. While linear energy harvesting devices have been shown to be effective for power generation in some environments, they must be tuned to the single dominant frequency of the excitations. In contrast, this work investigates the energy harvesting capabilities of attachments based on essentially nonlinear elements. Although primarily a numerical study, the results suggest that the use of essentially nonlinear attachments for harvesting energy low-level broadband vibration sources is not only possible but also efficacious, leading to performance gains that may be orders of magnitude superior to that of corresponding linear devices for broadband low-frequency excitations.