A vibration energy harvester using five-phase laminate composite transducer based on nanocrystalline soft magnetic alloy

In this research, a vibration energy harvester employing the FeCuNbSiB/Terfenol-D/PZT/Terfenol-D/FeCuNbSiB five-phase laminate composite transducer to convert mechanical vibration energy into electrical energy was presented. The electric output performance of the proposed vibration energy harvester has been investigated. It was found that appropriate FeCuNbSiB layer thickness was propitious to the electric output characteristics. Compared to traditional vibration energy harvester using Terfenol-D/PZT/Terfenol-D (MPM) transducer, the experimental results show that the proposed vibration energy harvester provides a remarkably enhanced output power performance. When the thickness of FeCuNbSiB layer was 30 μm, the optimum output power of vibration energy harvester achieved 4.00 mW/g for an acceleration of 0.8 g at frequency of 34.5 Hz, which was 1.29 times as great as that of traditional MPM transducer. Remarkably, this power is a very encouraging power figure and the proposed vibration energy harvester has great potential as far as its application in wireless sensor network.