Dynamics of Parametrically Excited Systems with

Application to Vibration Energy Harvesting

B. Zaghari, Dr. E. Rustighi, and Dr. M. Ghandchi Tehrani
Introduction
In structural systems, parametric excitation occurs when the stiffness, inertia or damping vary with time. A classical example of a parametrically excited system is the
swing set. Parametric excitation can be seen in marine risers, ship-mounted cranes, planetary gear systems, cable-stayed bridges, and more (Fig. 1). Due to the high
amplitude of responses as a result of parametric amplification, parametric excitation can be disastrous if not accounted for. The stability of a parametrically excited system
as a Single Degree-of-Freedom (SDOF) system is explained here.
Motion of
the riser

Cables

Roll

Tower

Vertical excitation
Planet gear

Ring gear

Deck

Queen Elizabeth
Dartford, England

Motion of
the cargo

Wave excitation

Vertical excitation

Fig. 1. Examples of parametrically excited systems. From left to right, a free hanging flexible riser, roll motion of a ship caused by wave
excitation, cargo motion on a ship-mounted crane, planetary gear design, and a cable-stayed bridge.
y

Parametrically excited systems

A cos(t)

Cargo motion on a ship can be modelled as a vertically excited pendulum (Fig. 2 (a)). The
dynamics and stability of such systems can be described by Mathieu equation [1]. An elastic
pendulum (Fig. 2 (b)), which consists of a spring fixed at the end, is an example of an
auto-parametric system [1].
Parametric excitation in cable-stayed bridges can be modelled as a vertically excited cantilever
beam (Fig. 2 (c)). When the cantilever beam is excited vertically at twice the natural frequency, the
cantilever beam can become unstable and have unbounded responses.

lp

Base

(a)

(b)

Harvester

Transducer

(c)

z
lb
l1
Coils

mm
k(t)

Electronics

(d)
Parametrically excited system
(e.g. cable-stayed bridges)

mt
k(t)

PZT transducer

mt
k(t)

ct

ct

C pi

Magnets

x
EIm

Mechanical
System

Fcos(t)

The model we introduce is a cantilever beam with an electromagnetic system that generates a
time-varying stiffness (Fig. 2 (d, e)). We examine this model for vibration energy harvesting
(Fig. 3).

Vibration
Source

+
V

(e)

Fig. 2. (a) Vertically excited pendulum. (b) Elastic pendulum. (c) Vertically
excited piezoelectric cantilever beam. (d) Parametrically excited cantilever
beam. (e) Experimental set-up of a cantilever beam with an electromagnetic
system for generating time-varying stiffness.

Analytical results

Fig. 3. Components of a vibration energy harvesting system.

backbone curve

A nonlinear parametrically excited system

0.10

Nonlinear parametrically excited systems are good models for real systems. The governing nonlinear parametrically excited differential equation, to find mass displacement z(t) can be written
as,

0.08
(m)

Trivial solutions

<0

>0

0.06
0.04

z + 2 n z + n2 (1 + cos (t)) z + n2 ( + cos (t)) z 3 = 0 ,

where is the damping ratio, n is the linear natural frequency, is the parametric frequency, is
the normalised parametric amplitude, is the normalised cubic stiffness nonlinearity, is the
normalised cubic parametric nonlinearity and is the bookmark term.
Fig. 4. Shows the effect of three different cubic nonlinearities on the amplitude of the steady-state
response of above equation. The system parameters can be found in [1].

Conclusions
In conclusion, the solutions and stability of the nonlinear parametrically excited systems can be
found analytically with different perturbation methods, however some of these solutions are not
valid experimentally. The future work focuses on comparing the analytical and experimental
results.

0.02
0

Trivial solutions

1.6

1.7

1.8

1.9

2.0

2.1

2.3

2.4

Fig. 4. Effect of positive and negative cubic stiffness nonlinearity on

amplitude-frequency curves. The cubic parametric nonlinearity, is
considered very small. The upper branches (
) and (
) are stable
steady-state non-trivial solutions and the lower branches (
) and ( ) are
the unstable non-trivial solutions. When amplitude is zero, the trivial
solutions can be stable ( ) or unstable ( ). The shaded area is representing
the region, which the linear parametrically excited system has unstable
unbounded solutions. Backbone curve is plotted to show the nonlinear
natural frequency.

References
[1] B. Zaghari, E. Rustighi, M. Ghandchi Tehrani. An experimentally validated parametrically excited vibration energy harvester with time-varying stiffness, SPIE 2015.
www. southampton.ac.uk
email: b.zaghari@soton.ac.uk
Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) , University of Southampton, UK, SO17 1BJ

2.2