Feasibility of passive electromagnetic dampers as energy harvesters in large structures

Abstract

There has been a trend in structural design toward energy efficient design and motion based design. The strategy of motion based design is controlling the movement of structures to meet certain dynamic response requirements by damping the structure. Structural damping dissipates the energy of external loads internally within the structure. A simple idea is to connect the two design strategies to control the motion of a structure while harvesting this dissipated energy by transducing it to electrical energy via passive electromagnetic damping. This study will attempt to determine the feasibility of using passive electromagnetic damping to control the motion and harvest the energy of damping of large scale structures.