Sharif Digital Repository

Micro-scale piezoelectric unimorph beams with attached proof masses are the most prevalent structures in MEMS-based energy harvesters considering micro fabrication and natural frequency limitations. In doubly clamped beams a nonlinear stiffness is observed as a result of midplane stretching effect which leads to amplitude-stiffened Duffing resonance. In this study, a nonlinear model of a doubly clamped piezoelectric micro power generator, taking into account geometric nonlinearities including stretching and large curvatures, is investigated. The governing nonlinear coupled electromechanical partial differential equations of motion are determined by exploiting Hamilton's principle. A... 

This article presents a model to simulate the behavior of a magnetic shape memory alloy while harvesting vibratory energy. In this type of energy harvester, magnetic shape memory alloy element is placed in the air gap of a ferromagnetic core which conducts the magnetic flux. Two apparent coils are wound around a ferromagnetic core: one to produce bias magnetic field by passing a rectified electric current and the other to serve as an energy pickup coil. Applying compressive time-variant strain field to magnetic shape memory alloy element changes its dimensions and magnetic properties as well. Presence of the bias magnetic field returns magnetic shape memory alloy element to its initial state... 

This study investigates acoustic energy harvesting via magnetic shape memory alloys (MSMA). The acoustic pressure impacts the neck of a Helmholtz resonator (HR) with a flexible face made of an elastic membrane. The design of the proposed energy harvester let radial force in the membrane be tunable. An MSMA is clamped to the membrane, and a proof mass is attached to the other end. The enhanced sound pressure vibrates the membrane and, therefore, excites the base of the MSMA specimen made of Ni-Mn-Ga to apply strain to it. Inserting strain onto the MSMA leads to variant reorientation and change of magnetization vectors, resulting in a change in flux passing through the pick-up coil. Therefore,... 

Elongated cylindrical structures with non-uniform diameters, under cross-flow, are often encountered in marine engineering and energy harvesting devices. In this work, the vortex-induced vibrations of elastically supported circular tapered and wavy cylinders with different cross sections areas are studied numerically using a wake oscillator model. The effect of the tapering ratio on the amplitude of oscillation is particularly analyzed. For tapered cylinders it is found that the amplitude of oscillation under flow decreases strongly when a critical tapering is reached. This is consistent with experimental data. A similar effect is found in wavy cylinders. A third system, consisting of a... 

Energy consumption and predictability are two important constraints in designing real-time embedded systems and one of the recently proposed solutions for the energy consumption problem is the use of non-volatile memories due to their lower leakage power consumption. Furthermore, because of their non-volatile nature, the use of these memories helps normally-off computing and energy harvesting systems. However, the write access latency of non-volatile memories is considerably more than that of SRAM which can decrease the performance and predictability of the system. We present a predictable non-volatile data memory for real-time embedded systems which improves both worst-case execution time... 

Stirling engines operate in a variety of temperatures and the electric power production via dish Stirling systems could be considered as an appropriate alternative for high-temperature solar concentrator energy harvesting systems. To this end, by performing various studies and analyses on the engine, Stirling cycle, and heat exchangers while utilizing the solar energy as the input thermal energy of the Stirling engine, parameters with the highest effect on the output power and engine stability are detected and considered as optimization variables. In this case, output power, thermal efficiency, and economic evaluation are taken to be the three suitable objective functions for multi-objective... 

Elongated cylindrical structures with non-uniform diameters, under cross-flow, are often encountered in marine engineering and energy harvesting devices. In this work, the vortex-induced vibrations of elastically supported circular tapered and wavy cylinders with different cross sections areas are studied numerically using a wake oscillator model. The effect of the tapering ratio on the amplitude of oscillation is particularly analyzed. For tapered cylinders it is found that the amplitude of oscillation under flow decreases strongly when a critical tapering is reached. This is consistent with experimental data. A similar effect is found in wavy cylinders. A third system, consisting of a... 

Energy consumption and predictability are two important constraints in designing real-time embedded systems and one of the recently proposed solutions for the energy consumption problem is the use of non-volatile memories instead of conventional SRAM due to their lower leakage power consumption and smaller cell area. Furthermore, because of their non-volatile nature, the use of these memories helps normally-off computing and energy harvesting systems to resume their execution without a large startup delay. However, the write access latency of non-volatile memories is considerably more than that of SRAM which can decrease the performance and predictability of the system if not managed... 

Stirling engines operate in a variety of temperatures and the electric power production via dish Stirling systems could be considered as an appropriate alternative for high-temperature solar concentrator energy harvesting systems. To this end, by performing various studies and analyses on the engine, Stirling cycle, and heat exchangers while utilizing the solar energy as the input thermal energy of the Stirling engine, parameters with the highest effect on the output power and engine stability are detected and considered as optimization variables. In this case, output power, thermal efficiency, and economic evaluation are taken to be the three suitable objective functions for multi-objective... 

The energy efficiency of emerging nonvolatile processors equipped with FRAM-SRAM memory makes them a promising solution for energy harvesting systems. To enable correct functionality and forward progress with an unreliable power supply, the system must accumulate sufficient energy in the capacitor to execute tasks atomically, even in the worst case scenario. Due to the large gap between the average and worst case energy consumption of tasks, state-of-the-art approaches like eM-map require a large capacitor to execute tasks on the SRAM. However, the size, cost, and charging time of the capacitor are major concerns in the energy harvesting systems. In this article, we proposed CHANCE, a... 

In this research, for the first time, the effect of primary particles (boulders) and secondary particles (fines) in organic mixtures of coffee, black walnut hull, madder, and tea (which are cheap, abundant, and biodegradable) on the improvement of solar stills' daily efficiency is evaluated as an alternative to metal-based nanofluids. A laboratory still simulator is utilised under laboratory conditions to measure the organic mixture's behaviour accurately. Furthermore, the effect of the concentration of organic mixtures and the particle size of organic materials are investigated, as well as the effect of boulders and fines, independently. In addition, two identical solar still systems are...