Enhanced vibrational energy harvesting using nonlinear stochastic resonance

✍ Scribed by C.R. McInnes; D.G. Gorman; M.P. Cartmell

• Book ID: 104033546
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 488 KB
• Volume: 318
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-460X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jsv.2008.07.017

✦ Synopsis

Stochastic resonance has seen wide application in the physical sciences as a tool to understand weak signal amplification by noise. However, this apparently counter-intuitive phenomenon does not appear to have been exploited as a tool to enhance vibrational energy harvesting. In this note we demonstrate that by adding periodic forcing to a vibrationally excited energy harvesting mechanism, the power available from the device is apparently enhanced over a mechanism without periodic forcing. In order to illustrate this novel effect, a conceptually simple, but plausible model of such a device is proposed to explore the use of stochastic resonance to enhance vibrational energy harvesting.