Electromagnetic Energy Harvester for Vibration Control of Space Rack: Modeling, Optimization, and Analysis

A space rack suffers from shock and broadband random loads during shipment and launch, which may lead to irreversible damage until the spacecraft reaches final orbit. This paper presents a novel dual-functional electromagnetic energy harvester (DF-EEH) that is regarded as an electrically tuned mass damper (TMD) to simultaneously suppress vibration and harvest energy. The equal modal damping method is proposed to optimize parameters of the DF-EEH. Furthermore, a resonant circuit is utilized to improve the energy harvesting performance and vibration suppression efficiency of the space rack. Genetic algorithm (GA) is used to optimize tuning frequencies and damping ratios of the DF-EEH with the resonant circuit. For the DF-EEH with both the resistor and resonant circuit, the response of the space rack is reduced to 9.29, and the harvested energy is 0.41 W/N. Therefore, this research can provide a novel vibration control and sustainable-energy supplement concept for the low-power-consumption electronic devices of space structures.