Energy harvesting from pressure forces

Abstract

With high demand for energy and various problems encountered in supplying the energy needs, every country in the world looks for sustainable sources of energy. In this framework, we propose a methodology that can be utilized in extracting energy from pressure sources available in the environment. Our method uses a two-degree of freedom spring-mass system coupled with an electromagnetic system to harness energy from freely available pressure sources. Our overall goal is to design and develop a physical device that is sustainable and has wide applications in extracting freely available pressure energy. As the first step, in this work, we present a simulation model that was developed to optimize the variables for maximum power extraction, which will be prominent in device fabrication. The simulation model was developed taking the constraints and design concerns that exist physically in developing the model. The results obtained from the simulation suggest that it is not straight forward to predict the relationship between the power extracted and the variable values. Especially the results suggested that some variables are more dominant (e.g. the length of the coil) in power extraction than others. Also, we were able to relate power as a function of some of the important variables, which will help in the fabrication process.