3D printed energy harvesters for railway bridges-Design optimisation

This paper investigates the optimal design of 3D printed energy harvesters for railway bridges. The type of harvester studied is a cantilever bimorph beam with a mass at the tip and a load resistance. These parameters are adjusted to find the optimal design that tunes the harvester to the fundamental frequency of the bridge. An analytical model based on a variational formulation to represent the electromechanical behaviour of the device is presented. The optimisation problem is solved using a genetic algorithm with constraints of geometry and structural integrity. The proposed procedure is implemented in the design and manufacture of an energy harvesting device for a railway bridge on an in-service high-speed line. To do so, first the methodology is validated experimentally under laboratory conditions and shown to offer strong performance. Next the in-situ railway bridge is instrumented using accelerometers and the results used to evaluate energy harvesting performance. The results show the energy harvested in a time window of three and a half hours (20 train passages) is E=109.32mJ. The proposed methodology is particularly useful for bridges with fundamental mode shapes above 4.5Hz, however optimal design curves are also presented for the most common railway bridges found in practice. A novelty of this work is the use of additive manufacturing to 3D print energy harvesters, thus maximising design flexibility and energy performance.

Additive manufacturing, Cantilever bimorph beam, Genetic algorithm, High-speed train, Piezoelectric energy harvesting, Railway bridges

10.1016/j.ymssp.2023.110133

0888-3270

Cámara-Molina, J.C.

fe3f023c-652f-4870-9235-d832fb70ee2d

Moliner, E.

37a0564a-8ad8-4770-bf95-cd43c1796427

Martínez-Rodrigo, M.D.

4a3cbbed-a07b-4f71-9f9b-8c38c13dc470

Connolly, D.P.

df0777d7-9bd5-404b-9dfc-89c002a44188

Yurchenko, D.

51a2896b-281e-4977-bb72-5f96e891fbf8

Galvín, P.

b96eda20-fe25-4918-9c37-884a3e1aa408

Romero, A.

55ef4490-2c3c-4514-a2a5-873d12c1e095

21 January 2023

Cámara-Molina, J.C.

fe3f023c-652f-4870-9235-d832fb70ee2d

Moliner, E.

37a0564a-8ad8-4770-bf95-cd43c1796427

Martínez-Rodrigo, M.D.

4a3cbbed-a07b-4f71-9f9b-8c38c13dc470

Connolly, D.P.

df0777d7-9bd5-404b-9dfc-89c002a44188

Yurchenko, D.

51a2896b-281e-4977-bb72-5f96e891fbf8

Galvín, P.

b96eda20-fe25-4918-9c37-884a3e1aa408

Romero, A.

55ef4490-2c3c-4514-a2a5-873d12c1e095

Cámara-Molina, J.C., Moliner, E., Martínez-Rodrigo, M.D., Connolly, D.P., Yurchenko, D., Galvín, P. and Romero, A. (2023) 3D printed energy harvesters for railway bridges-Design optimisation. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, 190, [110133]. (doi:10.1016/j.ymssp.2023.110133).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Text

1-s2.0-S0888327023000407-main - Version of Record

Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.

Download (2MB)

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 16 January 2023

e-pub ahead of print date: 21 January 2023

Published date: 21 January 2023

Additional Information: Funding Information: The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities under the research project PID2019-109622RB ; US-126491 funded by the FEDER Andalucía 2014–2020 Operational Program ; and the Andalusian Scientific Computing Centre (CICA) . Our thanks are extended as well to the reviewers and editor for their valuable comments that have certainly improved the paper.

Keywords: Additive manufacturing, Cantilever bimorph beam, Genetic algorithm, High-speed train, Piezoelectric energy harvesting, Railway bridges