Bifurcation Analysis of an Energy Harvesting System with Fractional Order Damping Driven by Colored Noise

Vibration energy harvester, which can convert mechanical energy to electrical energy so as to achieve self-powered micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), has received extensive attention. In order to improve the efficiency of vibration energy harvesters, many approaches, including the use of advanced materials and stochastic loading, have been adopted. As the viscoelastic property of advanced materials can be well described by fractional calculus, it is necessary to further discuss the dynamical behavior of the fractional-order vibration energy harvester. In this paper, the stochastic P-bifurcation of a fractional-order vibration energy harvester subjected to colored noise is investigated. Variable transformation is utilized to obtain the approximate equivalent system. Probability density function for the amplitude of the system response is derived via the stochastic averaging method. Numerical results are presented to verify the proposed method. Critical conditions for stochastic P-bifurcation are provided according to the change of the peak number for the probability density function. Then bifurcation diagrams in the parameter planes are analyzed. The influences of parameters in the system on the mean harvested power are discussed. It is found that the mean harvested power increases with the enhancement of the noise intensity, while it decreases with the increase of the fractional order and the correlation time.