Development of durability test procedure of vibration-based energy harvester in railway vehicle

Abstract

This study aims to develop a durability test procedure for vibration-based energy harvesters in the frequency domain. First, we investigated the vibration environment of a structure on which an energy harvester may be installed and determined the level and frequency range of the power spectral density (PSD) exerted on the energy harvester. Consequently, we developed a test procedure, which is composed of the PSD and sinusoidal sweep loads. The test system was built using a vibration exciter, data acquisition unit, and LabView-based control software. Using the developed test system, durability performance tests for two types of energy harvesters were performed according to the established test procedure.