Vibration Energy Harvesting from the Subwavelength Interface State of a Topological Metamaterial Beam

Topological metamaterial has been a research hotpot in both physics and engineering due to its unique ability of wave manipulation. The topological interface state, which can efficiently and robustly centralize the elastic wave energy, is promising to attain high-performance energy harvesting. Since most of environmental vibration energy is in low frequency range, the interface state is required to be designed at subwavelength range. To this end, this paper developed a topological metamaterial beam with local resonators and studied its energy-harvesting performance. First, the unit cell of this topological metamaterial beam consists of a host beam with two pairs of parasitic beams with tip mass. Then, the band structure and topological features are determined. It is revealed that by tuning the distance between these two pairs of parasitic beams, band inversion where topological features inverse can be obtained. Then, two sub-chains, their design based on two topologically distinct unit cells, are assembled together with a piezoelectric transducer placed at the conjunction, yielding the locally resonant, topological, metamaterial, beam-based piezoelectric energy harvester. After that, its transmittance property and output power were obtained by using the frequency domain analysis of COMSOL Multiphysics. It is clear that the subwavelength interface state is obtained at the band-folding bandgap. Meanwhile, in the interface state, elastic wave energy is successfully centralized at the conjunction. From the response distribution, it is found that the maximum response takes place on the parasitic beam rather than the host beam. Therefore, the piezoelectric transducer is recommended to be placed on the parasitic beam rather than host beam. Finally, the robustness of the topological interface state and its potential advantages on energy harvesting were studied by introducing a local defect. It is clear that in the interface state, the maximum response is always located at the conjunction regardless of the defect degree and location. In other words, the piezoelectric transducer placed at the conjunction can maintain a stable and high-efficiency output power in the interface state, which makes the whole system very reliable in practical implementation.