Enhancing Energy Harvesting System Using Materials With Fractional Order Stiffness

A bistable mechanical system having fractional order restoring force is considered for possible energy harvesting. The effects of the fractional order stiffness α on the crossing well dynamics (large amplitude motion) and the output electrical power are analyzed. The harvested electric power appears to be efficient for deterministic and random excitation, for small α ( α ≈ 2). High level noise intensity was found to reduce the output power in the region of resonance and surprisingly increases the outup in other region of α. For larger enough amplitude of harmonic excitation this effect is realized in a stochastic resonance.