Multi-Material Additively Manufactured Magnetoelectric Architectures with a Structure-Dependent...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Additive Manufacturing
• Energy Harvesting

Background:

• Multi-material additive manufacturing enables complex functional architectures.
• Integrating mechanical-to-electrical conversion in these components is challenging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop multi-material selectively laser sintered magnetoelectric architectures.
• To establish structure-property relationships for mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of porous magnetoelectric architectures with varying structural parameters.
• Investigation of electrical output dependence on elastic modulus and magnetic height.
• Numerical simulation to analyze structure-property relationships.

Main Results:

• Output voltage correlates inversely with elastic modulus and directly with magnetic height.
• Demonstrated a pair of self-powered sneakers capable of gait analysis.
• Achieved voltage output up to approximately 2 V, sufficient to power an LED.

Conclusions:

• Multi-material additive manufacturing offers a framework for designing energy-harvesting devices.
• Structure-dependent mechanical-to-electrical conversion is achievable in 3D printed components.
• Potential applications include wearable electronics and structural health monitoring.