Cámara-Molina, J.C. orcid.org/0000-0002-6744-0284, Romero, A. orcid.org/0000-0002-8879-5535, Moliner, E. orcid.org/0000-0002-8142-1936 et al. (4 more authors) (2024) Design, tuning and in-field validation of energy harvesters for railway bridges. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, 208. 111012. ISSN 0888-3270
Abstract
Energy harvesters are a promising technology for powering infrastructure condition monitoring systems without batteries. When deployed on railway bridges they are typically tuned to the bridge's natural frequency, however due to the dominance of train-induced forced vibration of the structure, this results in sub-optimal energy harvesting. As a solution, this paper presents a novel tuning strategy for energy harvesters on railway bridges. The strategy is based on a statistical analysis of the mechanical energy generated in the bridge during train passage and involves four steps: (i) measurement of bridge response due to train traffic, (ii) calculation of mechanical energy during train passage, (iii) statistical characterisation of the energy distribution, and finally, (iv) calculation of the tuning frequency. A case study is presented to compare the potential of the proposed strategy against tuning based upon the bridge natural frequency. First, an in-service railway bridge is monitored to determine its natural frequency and response to train traffic. Combining the field data with the proposed tuning strategy, the design of energy harvesters for the bridge is optimised. The design of harvesters tuned to natural frequencies is also studied. The underlying harvester type is a cantilever bimorph beam with a mass at the tip and load resistance. Additive manufacturing is used for the substructure, which is formed from PAHT-CF15 (High Temperature Polyamide carbon fibre reinforcement). The harvesters are manufactured and deployed on the bridge subject to live railway traffic. Field results show the devices designed using the new tuning strategy harvest up to 300% more energy. The energy harvested in a time window of three hours (18 train passages) is 7.65mJ.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Piezoelectric energy harvesting; Railway bridges; High-speed train; Tuning frequency |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Civil Engineering (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 Jan 2024 10:22 |
Last Modified: | 24 Jan 2024 10:22 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2023.111012 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.ymssp.2023.111012 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:208075 |