Energy harvesting and damping force of the vibration through the regenerative hybrid electrodynamic damper

Abstract

Cable vibration and monitoring the cable maintenance are inevitable parts of cable bridges. To integrate both problems, the electromagnetic (EM) devices are proposed to self-power damper and studied in various ways. The conventional EM devices have a lack of damping performance that additional damping is needed to mitigate the cable vibration. Therefore, the regenerative hybrid electrodynamic damper (RHED) is developed to increase the damping performance which can mitigate the cable vibration properly while electrical energy is generated. In this study, experiments for mechanical damping of RHED and vibration induced electrical energy are conducted to investigate the RHED configuration. The applied damper has various characteristics that can be used in civil engineering such as high induced voltage and variation of damping force. The damping force is varying according to external resistance and condition of excitation. The characteristics of RHED are considered to produce the energy harvesting circuit. This study increases the harvesting energy and charges the rechargeable battery through the proposed circuit. Besides, the proposed harvesting circuit perform more than 70% efficiency in certain excitation. As the result, energy harvesting and damping mechanism can be utilized simultaneously by grasping the relationship between the RHED and a circuit.