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Energy harvesting from a vehicle suspension

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ARTICLE in ENERGY MAY 2015
Impact Factor: 4.84 DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2015.04.009

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2 AUTHORS:
Xiangdong Xie

Q. Wang

University of Manitoba

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Energy 86 (2015) 385e392

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Energy harvesting from a vehicle suspension system

X.D. Xie b, Q. Wang a, b, *
a
b

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Khalifa University, PO Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 2 February 2015
Received in revised form
16 March 2015
Accepted 10 April 2015
Available online 6 May 2015

A dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester is developed for energy harvesting from ambient vibrations of a
vehicle suspension system subjected to roughness of road surfaces. The harvester is made of a sprung
mass (body mass) and an unsprung mass (wheel mass) connected by a piezoelectric bar transducer
which is equivalently modeled as a suspension spring and a damper in a mathematics model. The dualmass piezoelectric bar harvester is practically designed in a vehicle suspension system on wheels to
generate an electric charge. To describe the energy harvesting process, a mathematics model is developed to calculate the output charge and voltage from the harvester by an iteration method in the
temporal domain. The inuences of some practical considerations, such as the width of the piezoelectric
bar, the speed of vehicles, and the class of the road roughness, on the root mean square of the generated
electric power are discussed. Our results show that a power up to 738 W can be realized for a practical
design of the harvester with a width and height of the piezoelectric bar of 0.015 m and 0.1 m respectively.
This research develops a new design method for efcient and practical energy harvesting from vehicle
vibrations.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Piezoelectric bar harvester
Energy harvesting from vehicle suspension
Gauss white noise
RMS (Root mean square)

1. Introduction
Energy crisis and environmental problems such as oil shortage
and atmospheric pollution have brought challenges for new
development of an energy saving, efcient and environmentally
friendly power transmission system in vehicles. In recent years,
electric vehicles play a major role in attaining sustainability and
reducing air pollution [1]. The current status of EV (electric vehicle)
developments is encouraging. Several countries worldwide have
ambitions to electrify their car eet [2]. In regions such as China, by
this year there should be more than 100 000 PHEV (plug-in hybrid
electric vehicles) just in Beijing and 150 000 000 all over China
according to the Twelfth Five Year Plan [3].
EVs have an advantage over conventional internal combustion
engine automobiles since they do not emit harmful tailpipe pollutants from the onboard source of power [4]. However, there still
remain many challenges and unsolved issues in the development of
EVs. The price of EVs is signicantly higher than traditional vehicles, even after considering government incentives for EVs available

* Corresponding author. Dept of Mechanical Engineering, Khalifa University, Abu

Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Tel.: 971 (0) 2 501 8437.
E-mail address: quan.wang@kustar.ac.ae (Q. Wang).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.04.009
0360-5442/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

in several countries. The primary reason for high prices is the high
cost of vehicle batteries. The U.S. Department of Energy has set cost
targets for its sponsored battery research of US$300 per kilowatt
hour in 2015 and US$125 per kilowatt hour by 2022 [5]. In addition,
the efciency of EVs is low because they have a short driving range
and a long charging time. Electricity consumption for air conditioning or cabin heating can also shorten the driving range in areas
with hot/cold weather [6].
Due to the unsolved problems, research efforts turn to developments of energy harvesting from the vehicle kinetic energy as
a new driving source to increase the efciency of vehicles and
decrease their costs. In fact, only a small part of energy from the
onboard source of vehicles is used for driving, while most of the
energy dissipating during vibrations and motions [7]. If vibrations
of vehicles can be absorbed and reused fully, the utilization efciency of onboard source could be improved notably. Research efforts on energy recovery from vehicle suspensions, rst as an
auxiliary power source for active suspension control, and later as
energy regenerating devices in their own accord, have been
developed during recent years. A research [8] presented a design
and analysis of an efcient energy harvesting hydraulic electromagnetic shock absorber with least weight penalty on a vehicle.
The conceived shock absorber uses mechanical amplication and
linear generator along with a displacement sensitive uid damper.

386

X.D. Xie, Q. Wang / Energy 86 (2015) 385e392

A HESA (hydraulic electromagnetic shock absorber) was designed

[9], which can not only isolate vibration but also recover energy
from vibration of vehicles. The damping characteristic of the HESA
prototype is tested, and its performance is proven to be good under
low cracking pressure and small excitation amplitude without
taking into account the requirement that damping force in
compression stroke is greater than that in extension stroke. A new
kind of semi-active energy-regenerative suspension system was
proposed [10] to recover the suspension vibration energy, as well as
to reduce the suspension cost and demands for the motor-rated
capacity. A design and optimization of tubular LETs (linear electromagnetic transducers) was further presented [11] for vibration
energy harvesting from vehicle suspensions, and an average power
of 26e33 W was found to be achieved at a RMS (root mean square)
of suspension velocity of 0.25 m/s for different LETs of an outer
diameter of 300 and a compressed length of 1200 . A design, modeling,
bench experiments, and road tests were proposed [12] for a retrot
regenerative shock absorber based on a permanent magnetic
generator and a rackepinion mechanism for energy harvesting and
vibration damping. A peak power of 68 W and average power of
19 W were attained from one prototype shock absorber when the
vehicle is driven at 48 km/h (30 mi/h) on a fairly smooth campus
road.
Previous studies on regenerative vibration absorbers of vehicles
were all designed to generate electric energy from vibrations of
vehicles by electromagnetic materials. These absorbers were xed in
parallel with a suspension spring which indispensably dissipates a
part of vehicle vibration energy, and hence cannot fully absorb and
transfer the kinetic energy from the suspension system. In addition,
the conversion efciency of electromagnetic materials is not very
high. Currently, the mostly available vibration-to-electric conversion mechanisms are electromagnetic, electrostatic, and piezoelectric transductions. Among the three types of energy transductions,
the efciency of piezoelectric transductions is preferred and much
higher than the other two. It was indicated that the energy density of
piezoelectric transduction is three times higher than the other two
transductions [13]. Therefore, many research works have been
conducted on applications of piezoelectric materials for energy
conversion from ambient environmental vibrations. By both numerical simulations and experimental studies, A PEHSA (piezoelectric energy-harvesting shock absorber) system was developed
[14] for vehicles to act as an energy harvester that converts vibration energy to electrical energy. Cylindrical piezoelectric transducers are combined with a cylinder of the shock absorber to
generate electricity from changes in uid pressure produced by
piston vibrations. A design and testing of a vibration energy
harvester [15] was proposed with tunable resonance frequency,
wherein the tuning is accomplished by changing the attraction force
between two permanent magnets by adjusting the distance between the magnets. An optimal design of a piezoelectric coupled
cantilever structure attached by a mass subjected to vibrations was
introduced [16] to achieve a higher efcient energy harvesting. Sea
wave piezoelectric energy harvesters from longitudinal/transversal
wave motion of water particles were introduced later [17,18]. The
results show that the harvesters can generate power up to 55 W/
30 W for a practical longitudinal/transversal wave motion. A ring
piezoelectric energy harvester excited by magnetic forces was
developed [19] and it was found that a power up to 5274.8 W can be
realized for a practical design of the harvester with a radius around
0.5 m. The above references show that the piezoelectric technology
has the ability of generating up to thousands of watts of electric
power through absorbing ambient vibration energy. It is expected
that the piezoelectric harvesting energy technology may also be
used in absorbing kinetic energy from vehicles as a new driving
source to increase the efciency of vehicles and decrease their costs.

To achieve a new effective design of energy harvesting for

driving vehicles with piezoelectric technology, a dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester for absorbing energy from vibrations and
motions of a suspension system under random excitations from
road roughness is developed. A mathematical model of the dualmass piezoelectric bar harvester is established and studied by an
iteration method in temporal domain. Some key considerations for
the developed harvester are hence discussed for achieving a high
efciency of energy harvesting.
2. Design and methods
Design of a dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester is depicted in
Fig. 1(aec). The piezoelectric bar transducer model is schematically
illustrated in Fig. 1a which consists of a spring with a stiffness coefcient of k, a lever AB consisting of a long moment arm of AC with a
length of L1 and a short moment arm of BC with a length of L2, a xedhinge for restricting linear displacements of the lever at point C, and
a piezoelectric bar with a Yong's modulus, a width and height of Ep, a,
and h respectively. The equivalent stiffness coefcient of the device
assembled by the lever and the piezoelectric bar is k Epa2/n2h
(n L1/L2). Therefore, the total stiffness coefcient of the piezoelectric bar transducer is equal to kk/(k k). A typical quarter car
model is shown in Fig. 1b which includes a chassis and a wheel
connected by a spring and damper which can replace the piezoelectric bar transducer as an equivalence in the model. Because the
wheel can be modeled by a mass and a spring moving on a random
rough road with a motion function of q(t), the quarter car model can
be furthermore modeled by a dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester
model shown in Fig. 1c for the convenience of analysis. The dualmass piezoelectric bar harvester consists of a sprung mass of m2,
an unsprung mass of m1, namely the mass of the wheel with a spring
stiffness coefcient of k1. Two masses are connected in series by a
suspension spring with stiffness of k2 kk'/(k k') and a damper
with an equivalent damping coefcient of c2. Based on the model in
Fig. 1c,a mathematical model for the dual-mass piezoelectric bar
harvester is developed and solved by an iteration method.
According to the principle that the dissipation energy of a
damper is equal to the electric energy generated by the piezoelectric bar harvester, the damping coefcient c2 can be derived as
below:

c2 n2 d233 k22

.

p2 cv f ;

(1)

where n L1/L2 is a ratio of the moment arms of the lever; d33 is the
piezoelectric constant in the polling direction; cv is the electrical
capacity of the piezoelectric bar; f is the rst natural vibration
frequency of the vehicle suspension.
The governing differential equations of the dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester system in Fig. 1c are expressed below according to Newton second law:

m1 z1  c2 z_2  z_1  k2 z2  z1 k1 z1  qt 0
;
m2 z2 c2 z_2  z_1 k2 z2  z1 0

(2)

where z1 and z2 denote displacements of the unsprung mass and

sprung mass with respect to their respective equilibrium positions;
q(t) is the transverse motions function of road surface, which can be
obtained by the equation:

_ 2pf0 qt 2pn0
qt

q
Gq n0 vtwt;

(3)

where Gq n0 is the roughness coefcient of the road surface in m3;

n0 is a reference spatial frequency with a value of 0.1 m1; f0 is a

X.D. Xie, Q. Wang / Energy 86 (2015) 385e392

387

Fig. 1. Sketch of the dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester of a quarter-car. (a) A piezoelectric bar transducer, (b) The Quarter-car model, and (c) The qual-mass piezoelectric energy
harvester.

Table 1
Material properties and dimensions of a dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester.
Dual-mass piezoelectric energy
harvester

Lever(hardened steel) and piezoelectric

bar (PZT4)

m1(kg)

m2(kg)

a(m)

24
Cv0 (nF)))

350
85 270
60 000 0.015e0.025 0.1
5e9
6.4e-10
0.375 for the piezoelectric patch with the geometry of 0.01, 0.01,
0.0001 m

k1(N/m)

k(N/m)

h(m)

n(L1/L2)

d33(C/N)

Table 2
Road-roughness coefcients Gq(n0) (m3) classied by ISO/TC108/SC2N67.
Road class

Gq(n0)(106)

16

64

256

1024

4096

16 384

65 536

262 144

minimal boundary frequency with a value of 0.0628 Hz; v(t) is the

vehicle velocity in m/s; w(t) is a zero-mean (temporal) white noise
process [20].
The natural frequencies, 1, 2, and mode shapes, {f}1,2, of the 2
DOF (degree-of-freedom) dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester
system are therefore listed below [21]:

8
0 2
s311=2


>
>
>
1
k

k
k
k1 k2 k2 2
k k
>
1
2
2
4
@
>

 4 1 2 5A
u
>
1
>
>
2
m1
m2
m1
m2
m1 m2
<

0 2
s311=2 ;
>
>


>
>
1 k k2 k2
k1 k2 k2 2
k k
>
>
>
u2 @ 4 1

 4 1 2 5A
>
:
2
m1
m2
m1
m2
m1 m2
(4)

Fig. 2. Displacements and RMS of electric power versus ratio of L1/L2 based on a certain Gauss white noise. (a) Gauss white noise with zero mean value, (b) Transverse displacement
of road surface, (c) Relative displacement of sprung mass and unsprung mass, and (d) RMS of electric power versus ratio of L1/L2.

388

X.D. Xie, Q. Wang / Energy 86 (2015) 385e392

Table 3
Dimensions and harvesting capacity of two different vehicle suspension harvesters.
Type of harvester

Dimension

Linear electromagnetic transducers(LETs)

Piezoelectric bar harvester

Out diameter: 300 (7.62 cm)

Width:1.5 cm

ffg1;2

k2

:
k1 k2  m1 u21;2

Compressed length:1200 (30.48 cm)

Height:10 cm

(5)

Eq. (2) is re-arranged as

 
  
z1
0
c
k k2
z_1
2
1
z2
0 c2
k2
z_2

 
 
0 c2
k1 qt
z_1

;
c2 0
z_2
0

m1
0

0
m2

k2
k2

z1
z2

(6)
or simply written as

n o
n o
n o
C Z_ KfZg fPg C 0  Z_ :
M Z

(7)

According to the modal analysis methods, we write

fZg 4fYg f4g1 Y1 f4g2 Y2 ;

(8)

RMS of suspension
velocity

Average power

0.25 cm/s
0.29 cm/s

26e33 W
738 W

where [f] is a mode matrix; {Y} is a vector of the generated

coordinates.
Substituting Eq. (8) into Eq. (7) and multiplying it by f4gT1 and
f4gT2 respectively lead to


C  C 0 Y_ K Y P C 0 Y_ P ;
M1 Y
1
1
1
1 1
11
1
11
12 2

(9)


C  C 0 Y_ K Y P C 0 Y_ P ;
M2 Y
2
2
2
2 2
22
2
22
21 1

(10)

in which M1 f4gT1 Mf4g1 , M2 f4gT2 Mf4g2 , C1 f4gT1 Cf4g1 ,

C2 f4gT2 Cf4g2 ,
K1 f4gT1 Kf4g1 ,
K2 f4gT2 Kf4g2 ,
0 f4gT C 0 f4g ,
P11 f4gT1 fPg,
P22 f4gT2 fPg,
C11
1
1
T 0
T 0
0
0
0
C12 f4g1 C f4g2 , C22 f4g2 C f4g2 , C 21 f4gT2 C 0 f4g1 .
The generalized coordinates, Y1 and Y2, can be obtained by an
iteration method. In order to ensure the constringency of the iteration, the forces of P1 and P2 are separated into small incremental
segments in time domain and are supposed to be linear with time
at each time interval. The governing differential equations at each
time interval are thus given as:

Fig. 3. Displacements and RMS of electric power versus width of the piezoelectric bar based on a certain Gauss white noise. (a) Gauss white noise with zero mean value, (b)
Transverse displacement of road surface, (c) Relative displacement of sprung mass and unsprung mass, and (d) RMS of electric power versus width.

X.D. Xie, Q. Wang / Energy 86 (2015) 385e392


t C  C 0 Y_ t K Y t P t C 0 Y_ t
M1 Y
1
1
1
1 1
11
11
12 2
P1 t P1i a1i t;
(11)


t C  C 0 Y_ t K Y t P t C 0 Y_ t
M2 Y
2
2
2
2 2
22
22
21 1

h 0.0001 m [22]. The force applied to the piezoelectric bar in its

poling direction at time ti is a random excitation at the end of the
lever from the driving vehicle. Hence the RMS of the generated
power from 0 to t from the piezoelectric bar can be obtained as:

Perms

P2 t P2i a2i t;

389

v
u Zt
u
u1
t
Pe t2 dt;
t

(16)

(12)
Where
ti  t  ti1 ,
ti1 ti Dt,
0 Y_ t ; i 0; 1; 2; / ,
P1i P11 ti C12
a1i P1i1  P1i =Dt,
2 i
0 Y_ t ; i 0; 1; 2; / , a P
P2i P22 ti C21
1 i
2i
2i1  P2i =Dt.
Consequently, we can obtain the displacements, z1, z2 and velocities, z_ 1, z_ 2 at each time point of the unsprung mass and sprung
mass at their respective equilibrium positions. The relative displacements, z21 z2z1, and velocities, z_ 21 z_ 2z_ 1, of the sprung
mass and the unsprung mass can also be obtained. Then the
generated charge, Qg(ti), and voltage, Vg(ti), from the piezoelectric
bar at time ti can be solved by equations below:

Qg ti d33 nk2 z21 ti ;

(13)

Vg ti d33 nk2 z21 ti =Cv ;

(14)

Ig ti d33 nk2 z_21 ti ;

(15)

where Cv Cv0  a  a  0:0001=0:01  0:01  h is the electric

capacity of the piezoelectric bar in nF;Cv0 is the unit capacitance of
the piezoelectric patch with an geometry of a 0.01 m, b 0.01 m,

where Pe t d233 n2 k22 z21 tz_21 t=Cv is the generated power of the
piezoelectric bar at time t (0 < t < t).
To estimate the RMS of the generated power, the period, t, can
be separated into j time steps with a sufciently short time interval
Dt. As a result, the expression in Eq. (16) can be rewritten in a
discrete form below:

Perms

v
u
j 

u
X
Dt
Pe ti 2 Pe ti1 2 :
t
2t  Dt i2

(17)

3. Results
In the following simulations, some important factors in designs,
such as the ratio of the moment arms of the lever, the width of the
piezoelectric bar, the velocity of vehicles, and the road roughness
coefcient, that inuence the RMS (root mean square) of the
generated power are investigated for the proposed harvester. The
dimensions and material properties of the energy harvester are

Fig. 4. Displacements and RMS of electric power on a road of class B based on a certain Gauss white noise. (a) Gauss white noise with zero mean value, (b) Transverse displacement
of road surface, (c) Relative displacement of sprung mass and unsprung mass, and (d) RMS of electric power versus speed of vehicle.

390

X.D. Xie, Q. Wang / Energy 86 (2015) 385e392

provided in Table 1. The road roughness adopts the rst three

classes, namely classes of B, C, and D, which are given in Table 2. The
piezoelectric bar and lever are made of PZT4 (lead zirconate titanate) and hardened steel, respectively.
The effect of the ratio of the moment arms of the lever on the
RMS of the electric power generated by the dual-mass piezoelectric
bar harvester is studies in Fig. 2(aed). A random Gauss white noise
with a zero mean value is shown in Fig. 2a, and the transversal
motions in 30 s of the car with a velocity of 35 m/s on a road of class
D is shown in Fig. 2b. The motions are with a maximum amplitude
of 0.097 m based on the white noise shown in Fig. 2a. The relative
displacement, with the maximum amplitude of 0.094 m, of sprung
mass and unsprung mass excited by the random road transversal
motions in Fig. 2b is shown in Fig. 2c. A nonlinear increase of the
RMS with an increase in the ratio of the moment arms of the lever is
shown in Fig. 2d. The results shown by the solid curve in Fig. 2d are
calculated based on the white noise excitation shown in Fig. 2a. The
results by the solid line show that the highest RMS of the generated
power is 714 W with a width and height of the piezoelectric bar, the
vehicle speed, the road roughness coefcient, and the ratio of
moment arms of the lever being a 0.015 m, h 0.1 m, v 35 m/s,
Gq(n0) 1024e-6 m3, and L1/L2 9, respectively. The results indicate that the RMS can be in a range of 457 We714 W when the ratio
of the moment arms of the lever changes from 5 to 9. It is concluded
that the novel dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester is very efcient
compared to the developed electromagnetic harvesters. For
example, as indicated in Table 3, an average power of 33 W can only
be achieved from vibrations of a vehicle suspension by an optimal
tubular LETs (linear electromagnetic transducers) of an outer
diameter of 300 and a compressed length of 1200 [11]. In addition to

the fact that the piezoelectric technology has higher transduction

efciency than that by the electro-magnetic technology, a piezoelectric bar harvester can fully harvest the energy induced by the
suspension system of vehicles. The results by dashed curves in
Fig. 2d are obtained based on random white noise excitations 2 and
3 that are with a same intensity of that shown in Fig. 2a, but are
chosen randomly in calculations. It is clearly seen that although a
difference in the obtained RMS can be identied, the variations of
the generated power remain same when white noises with a same
mean value are used in evaluating the power by the model. The
results show that the difference is within 10% only. The above
analysis indicates that the model of the dual-mass piezoelectric bar
harvester is robust since it is relatively insensitive to the environmental factors such as various white noise excitations.
The effect of the width of the piezoelectric bar on the RMS of
electric power generated by the dual-mass piezoelectric bar
harvester is shown in Fig. 3(aed). A random Gauss white noise
excitation with a zero mean value is given in Fig. 3a. The transversal
motions in 30 s of the car with a velocity of 35 m/s on a road of class
D are provided in Fig. 3b. The motions are with a maximum
amplitude of 0.106 m. The relative displacement, with a maximum
amplitude of 0.106 m, of the sprung mass and the unsprung mass
excited by the random road transversal motions given in Fig. 3b is
shown in Fig. 3c. The variations of the RMS versus the width of the
piezoelectric bar is provided in Fig. 3d. The geometry and material
parameters of the dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester in this
simulation are set to be: L1/L2 9, h 0.1 m, m1 24 kg,
m2 350 kg, k1 85 270 N/m, k 60 000 N/m, f0 0.0628 Hz,
v 35 m/s and Gq(n0) 1024e-6 m3. It can be found that the RMS
nonlinearly decreases with an increase in the width of the

Fig. 5. Displacements and RMS of electric power on a road of class C based on a certain Gauss white noise. (a) Gauss white noise with zero mean value, (b) Transverse displacement
of road surface, (c) Relative displacement of sprung mass and unsprung mass, and (d) RMS of electric power versus speed of vehicle.

X.D. Xie, Q. Wang / Energy 86 (2015) 385e392

391

Fig. 6. Displacements and RMS of electric power on a road of class D based on a certain Gauss white noise. (a) Gauss white noise with zero mean value, (b) Transverse displacement
of road surface, (c) Relative displacement of sprung mass and unsprung mass, and (d) RMS of electric power versus speed of vehicle.

piezoelectric bar. The observation is interpreted that an increase in

the width of the piezoelectric bar would lead to an increase in the
electric capacity of Cv, and in turn a decrease in the electric voltage,
i.e. a decreased generated power (see Eqs. (14) and (16)). It can be
seen from Fig. 3d that the RMS decreases from 738 W to 340 W
when the width of the piezoelectric bar changes from 0.015 m to
0.025 m.
The effects of velocities of vehicles on the RMS of the electric
power generated by cars on road classes of B, C, and D are revealed
in Figs. 4e6. Three different random Gauss white noises are provided in Figs. 4ae6a with a zero mean value. The transversal motions in 30 s of the car are provided in Figs. 4ae6b with a velocity of
35 m/s on a road of classes B, C, and D. The motions are with a
maximum amplitude of 0.02 m, 0.05 m and 0.107 m, respectively.
Accordingly, three relative displacements, with maximum amplitudes of 0.032 m, 0.052 m, and 0.099 m, of the sprung mass and
unsprung mass excited by the random road transversal motions in
Figs. 4be6b are provided in Figs. 4ce6c, respectively. The relationship between the RMS and velocities of vehicles in a range of
10 m/s to 35 m/s on a road of classes B, C, and D, is demonstrated in
Figs. 4e6d respectively. These simulations adopt the same geometry and material parameters with previous simulations. It is found
in Figs. 4de6d that the RMS linearly increases with an increase in
the velocity of vehicles. The observation is interpreted by the fact
that the transversal motions and velocities of the road surface and
the relative displacements and velocities of the sprung mass and
unsprung mass are all proportional to the square root of the velocity of vehicles shown as Eq. (3). It can be seen from Figs. 4e6d
that the RMS increase from 18 W to 40 W, 70 W to 162 W and
281 W to 652 W, respectively, when the velocity of vehicle changes
from 10 m/s to 35 m/s. Thus it is obvious that a slight increase of

velocity of vehicles would lead to a remarkable augment of the

RMS.
4. Conclusions
A novel efcient dual-mass piezoelectric bar harvester is
developed for energy harvesting from ambient vibrations of a
vehicle suspension system subjected to roughness of road surfaces.
A mathematics model is developed to calculate the output charge,
voltage, and electric power from the harvester by an iteration
method in temporal domain. The computation results show that
the RMS increases with an increase in the velocity of vehicles and
the class of road surface, an increase in the ratio of the moment
arms of the lever, and a decrease in the width of the piezoelectric
bar. For an energy harvester structure with geometry and material
parameters of a 0.015 m, L1/L2 9, h 0.1 m, m1 24 kg,
m2 350 kg, k1 85 270 N/m, k 60 000 N/m, f0 0.0628 Hz,
v 35 m/s and Gq(n0) 1024e-6 m3, a value of RMS about 738 W
can be achieved. It is expected that in practice four or more of the
novel piezoelectric bar energy harvesters could be installed on a
vehicle and provide more efcient energy harvesting as an auxiliary
energy of vehicles. The research develops a new design method for
an efcient and practical energy harvesting from vehicle vibrations,
and hence would have a signicant impact on automobile industry.
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