Energy harvesting using magnetic shape memory alloy under biaxial mechanical loading

Magnetic shape memory alloys (MSMAs) are a kind of smart materials which are of great importance due to some unmatched behaviors when subjected to a mechanical loading or a magnetic field. In this work, energy harvesting from an MSMA specimen is studied. The MSMA specimen is embedded in a common magnetic circuit in this field of research and by applying mechanical loading, its effect on the specimen magnetic characteristics and induced voltage is investigated. Mechanical loading is applied in the form of strain-input and three kinds of 2D loadings are used including sinusoidal-sinusoidal, sinusoidal-triangular and triangular-triangular. It is demonstrated that the highest voltage is obtained in sinusoidal-sinusoidal loading and there is a negative correlation between the phase difference of the applied loadings in two directions and output voltage.