Characterization of magnetostrictive bi-stable rotational vibration energy harvester with integrated centrifugal effect

Abstract Rotational machinery is a common presence in dust still production, and the occurrence of operational failures in components like engines and turbine blades necessitates effective measures. To solve this challenge, remote structural health monitoring using energy harvesting and wireless sensors has been widely employed to realize self-powered sensing. This study proposes a magnet-induced bi-stable rotational energy harvester (REH), which utilizes the centrifugal effect to broaden the effective frequency bandwidth, enabling efficient energy harvesting in complex environments. A comprehensive mathematical model has been established to facilitate the dynamic characteristics of the bi-stable system, taking into account the centrifugal effect. The theoretical results demonstrate that the gap distance of magnetic configuration has great effects on the bi-stable system. Additionally, the centrifugal effect decided by the centrifugal radius and rotational speeds also affects the stable high-energy orbit oscillations. Furthermore, experimental results indicate that the proposed REH can effectively operate within the frequency range of 230–290 rpm, with a maximum RMS voltage of 780 mV and corresponding power of 4.35 mW. These findings validate the performance of the bi-stable magnetostrictive REH with the centrifugal effect and indicate its potential to effectively address the power supply challenges for wireless sensors. Overall, this study presents a promising solution for enhancing the energy harvesting performance of REH and also provides insights into the design of high-efficiency REH by magnet-induced nonlinearity and the centrifugal effect.