Academics Research Our Dept Resources Academics Undergraduate Programs Graduate Programs Course Descriptions Mission and Objectives Research Department Faculty & Staff Graduate Students Open Faculty Positions News & Announcements Events Resources Webmail Career Services Engineering Student Services Intranet Home > Our Department > All Events > Energy Harvesting from Motion with Nonlinear Phenomena     Energy Harvesting from Motion with Nonlinear Phenomena   By Dr. Brian Mann Assistant Professor, Dynamical Systems Lab Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Duke University   Thu, Oct 8, 2009 2:30 PM   Location: Lopata 101   Abstract:   Recent advancements in the microelectronics industry have enabled a reduction in the power consumed by MEMS devices.  This has motivated many works that investigate meeting the need for remote power by scavenging energy from the environment.  While solar, chemical and thermal methods are sometimes viable, many have recognized the abundance of vibration as a potential source of energy;  thus, extracting energy from an inertial generator interacting with its environment has become a promising area of inquiry.  For instance, several recent investigations consider scavenging the energy from the motions in the ambient environment to power wireless sensor networks for bridges, buildings, or aircraft and the powering of body-worn or implanted electronics with human motion.      This talk will discuss vibration-based energy harvesting.  In particular, the primary focus of past works was to use a frequency matching to achieve linear resonance; although this approach simplifies the analyses, it suffers from the fact that a substantial amount of energy can only be scavenged from a narrow-band of frequencies near resonance.  My research focuses on an alternative perspective to this problem whereby nonlinear behavior is intentionally incorporated to achieve beneficial performance increases.  More specifically, I will describe our recent work that attempts to achieve broadband performance and tuning by the implementation of certain nonlinearity behaviors into inertial generators.  Finally, my talk will conclude with some perspectives on future opportunities in this area.        Mechanical, Aerospace & Structural Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis One Brookings Drive, Box 1185, St. Louis, Missouri 63130 Office Location: 305 Jolley Hall, Phone: (314) 935-6047, Fax: (314) 935-4014   Home |  Academics | Research | Department | Resources © 2009 | Did you find it?