Study on the performance of spherical collision triboelectric nanogenerator

The development of the theoretical model for the spherical collision triboelectric nanogenerator (SC-TENG) has been slow, despite its ability to generate electric energy through low-frequency vibration while simultaneously reducing the motion response of the primary system. Previous theoretical models have solely focused on energy harvesting, disregarding the damping effect of spherical collisions. This paper presents an electromechanical coupling control equation, which accounts for the dynamic and electrical characteristics of spherical particles, to describe the relationship between motion displacement, velocity, acceleration, and particle number. The particle motion process is divided into two phases: non-collision and collision process. Using the constant velocity before and after collision, this paper calculates voltage and current changes corresponding to two collisions of particles in one cycle. Cadence software simulates and analyzes the equivalent circuit parameters of the TENG, where output voltage is proportional to the resistor/capacitor. Single, two, and three-particle acceleration, velocity, and displacement before and after collision are simulated using Abaqus software. Particle collision simulation shows the energy loss is related to the number of particles, the more the number of particles, the more the energy loss. The single-degree-of-freedom experimental model tests vibration reduction and energy collection effects of particles. As mass ratio increases, the vibration reduction and energy collection effects improve for particles. If the mass ratio remains constant, the vibration reduction effect does not vary much for different particle diameters (10/12/15 mm), but the energy collection effect of particle diameter of 10 mm is superior. Multi-layer particles, vibration control, voltage and current increase linearly with the number of layers. SC-TENG can be applied in the future to reduce structural vibration, while its additional energy collection capabilities can be as self-powered sensing to monitor movement of vibrating structures in real-time.