Dedicated sensors are widely used throughout many industries to monitor everyday operations, maintain safety and
report performance characteristics. In order to adopt a more sustainable solution, intensive research is being conducted
for self-powered sensing. To enable sensors to power themselves, harvesting energy from environmental vibration has
been widely studied, however, its overall effectiveness remains questionable due to small vibration amplitudes and thus
limited harvestable energy density. This paper addresses the issue by proposing a novel vibration energy harvester in
which a metal compliant mechanism frame is used to house both a linear electromagnetic generator and proof mass. Due
to the compliant mechanism, the proposed energy harvester is capable of amplifying machine vibration velocity for a
dedicated electromagnetic generator, largely increasing the energy density. The harvester prototype is also fabricated and
experimentally characterized to verify its effectiveness. When operating at its natural frequency in a low base amplitude,
0.001 in (25.4μm) at 19.4 Hz, during lab tests, the harvester has been shown to produce up to 0.91 V AC open voltage,
and a maximum power of 2 mW, amplifying the relative proof mass velocity by approximately 5.4 times. In addition, a
mathematical model is created based on the pseudo-rigid-body dynamics and the analysis matches closely with
experiments. The proposed harvester was designed using vibration data from nuclear power plants. Further steps for
improving such a design are given for broader applications.
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