Tailoring multistable vibrational energy harvesters for enhanced performance: theory and numerical investigation

This study exposes the analytical and numerical analyses of multistable systems for energy harvesting purposes. More specifically, this paper aims at providing appropriate conditions for ensuring equal potential barrier to go from one well to another whatever the order of multistability. This therefore allows optimal operations through either potential barrier lowering or vibration magnitude increase. Then, such analytical and numerical results are incorporated into a general dynamic model and evaluated. Results show a significant magnification of the frequency bandwidth while keeping the same maximal velocity magnitude. Hence, such a unified approach would permit designing efficient vibrational energy harvester working on a wide frequency band at low excitation levels.