A study on performance enhancement of electromagnetic generator via Finite Element Analysis

Kinetic energy in vibration form is considered as one of potential renewable energy that may power up wireless micro-system. This energy can be converted into electrical energy via vibration energy harvester which makes use of Faraday's law of induction. The harvester generally consists of cantilever as spring, magnets and coils. Two magnets are arranged on the bottom and top at one end of cantilever while another end is fixed. The coils are placed beside two sides of the magnets. This paper presents a design and modelling of harvester with high permeability material. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of placing high permeability material besides the coil in order to enhance the performance of the harvester. Analyses are conducted by comparing the magnetic flux density for different configurations. The magnetic flux density along the coils is reported 0.149 T, 0.228 T and 0.21 T for Configuration I, II, and III, respectively. The performance of Configuration III is optimized by vary the height and thickness of high permeability material to obtain 0.24 T along the coil. Electromotive force generation among configurations also presented.