Improving the Performance of an Inertial Electromagnetic Energy Harvester Through Adaptive Suspension

This study investigates an inertial electromagnetic energy harvester designed to simultaneously attenuate vibrations and harvest electrical energy. The proposed system is based on a nonlinear oscillator incorporating an electromagnetic transducer, where electrical energy is generated through the relative motion between a permanent magnet and a surrounding coil. To enhance the adaptability and performance of the harvester, the suspension system incorporates two nonlinear elements: a shape-memory alloy spring and a magnetorheological damper. The adaptive characteristics of these components enable significant modifications of the system dynamics, thereby affecting both vibration attenuation and energy harvesting performance. The results demonstrate that the adaptive suspension system can be effectively tuned to simultaneously improve vibration control and energy harvesting while maintaining satisfactory vibration mitigation performance. Furthermore, for selected parameter configurations, the amount of harvested energy can be increased. In addition, the adaptive suspension can be adjusted to suppress unwanted dynamic responses. Finally, numerical and experimental investigations were conducted to validate the developed numerical model.