A Magnetostrictive Energy Harvester for Shipboard Mechanical Vibration Sources Navy STTR FY2010.A Sol No.: Navy STTR FY2010.A Topic No.: N10A-T020 Topic Title: A Magnetostrictive Energy Harvester for Shipboard Mechanical Vibration Sources Proposal No.: N10A-020-0314 Firm: Creare Inc. P.O. Box 71 Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 Contact: Bruce Pilvelait Phone: (603) 643-3800 Web Site: www.creare.com Abstract: There are many efforts underway to develop distributed shipboard health monitoring sensors. These devices face strong opposition by fleet maintainers unless the requirements for power supply cabling and/or battery maintenance are eliminated. Consequently, methods for harvesting energy from local environmental conditions using heat, solar, and vibration are of great interest. As opposed to piezoelectric and electromagnetic energy harvesting devices which tend to be either fragile or large and inefficient, magnetostrictive energy harvesting devices offer reliability, excellent conversion efficiency, and low cost. We propose to determine the feasibility of developing a magnetostrictive energy harvesting device for shipboard distributed health monitoring sensors using vibration as the energy input. During Phase I, we will develop the concept described in this proposal and build and evaluate a prototype. During Phase II, we will fabricate several prototype systems and demonstrate performance on large scale platforms. Benefits: The proposed magnetostrictive energy harvester accommodates a range of vibration sources, frequencies, and amplitudes and can function with either Terfenol or Galfenol devices. The integrated design of a broadband resonator and magnetostrictive energy harvester offers excellent performance, while the simple design is reliable and low cost. This technology will fulfill commercial needs for improved power sources for distributed shipboard health monitoring sensors and will eliminate extensive cabling and/or the need for battery replacement. Return