Piezomagnetoelastic broadband energy harvester: Nonlinear modeling and characterization

Piezomagnetoelastic energy harvesters are one among the widely explored configurations to improve the broadband characteristics of vibration energy harvesters. Such nonlinear harvesters follow a Moon beam model with two magnets at the base and one at the tip of the beam. The present article develops a geometric nonlinear mathematical model for the broadband piezomagnetoelastic energy harvester. The electromechanical coupling and the nonlinear magnetic potential equations are developed from the dimensional system parameters to describe the nonlinear dynamics exhibited by the system. The developed model is capable of characterizing the monostable, bistable and tristable operating regimes of the piezomagnetoelastic energy harvester, which are not explicit in the Duffing representation of the system. Bifurcations and attractor motions are analyzed as nonlinear functions of the distance between base magnets and the field strength of the tip magnet. The model is further used to characterize the potential wells and stable states, with due focus on the performance of the system in broadband energy harvesting.