Energy scavenging using giant magnetostriction material: Prototype development

After a giant magnetostriction was first found at a room temperature in early 1980s, there have been many applications proposed in a variety of fields. This paper introduces a novel application which is able to generate electric power by utilizing a reverse transduction of the material called Villari effect. The generator uses vibration as a power source which is commonly available in our daily life such as traffic-induced ground vibration or bridge vibration. Unlike a similar application using piezoelectric material, the power generator using giant magnetostriction material can produce far greater electric power. We designed and fabricated two different kinds of prototypes, one being installed on the ground and the other being compact and mounted on a vehicle like a car. This report presents the basic characteristics of the prototypes based on preliminary experiments.