Abstract
Magnetoelectricity, the relation between electrical and magnetic properties in a matter, is a promising conversion mechanism for kinetic energy harvesting. Magnetoelectric (ME) converters take advantage of strong mechanical nonlinearities of magnetostrictive and piezoelectric materials for conceptually novel vibration harvesters. This chapter presents the basics of magnetoelectricity inME laminate composites and discusses the choice of materials. The general physical concept of ME response in conventional ME transducers and an overview of the recent developments in the state of the art of magnetoelectric energy harvesting are presented. A finite element model of magnetostriction is developed in order to investigate the ME response in the transducer in two differentmagnetic circuit configurations aiming to develop amodelbased design method for ME converters.
