Research

This page is under construction!!!

Intro

• A research by Beam van Waardenberg into the possibilities for WdKA students to add energy harvesting to their projects. The focus of this research is on how this field of Energy Harvesting can be openend up for WdKA students.
  • Beam himself is an e-textile designer: https://myfablab.wordpress.com/

About Energy Harvesting

If your product becomes interactive in any way it needs energy. This energy is normally obtained from the mains (220V) or using batteries. In case of batteries, like laptops and cell phones, the device has to be recharged regularly.

Energy Harvesting means you replace these traditional sources by a way to generate the needed energy by the product you have designed yourself. This can be done by using the energy of the Sun in a solar cell, or wind energy by a generator or the muscle energy of the user by a dynamo.

Research Blog

• Blog

In this blog the posts document the progress of the research. The research was not a lineair process. The subject of Energy Harvesting is complex and has lot's of details. This research was not only about knowledge gathering but also doing experiments ourselves.

Powerpoints of a course "Energy Harvesting for Designers"

In the "Open AanbodWdKA" a course on this subject was given. Two powerpoints introduce the subject and the calculations:

• ppt1, introduction into energy harvesting
• ppt2, introduction into calculations

Categories of Design Projects using Energy Harvesting

• Commercial Projects
  • Designers are involved in projects which want to generate commercially exploitable amounts of energy
• Social Projects
  • Designers are setting up many local small scale projects for people living in Africa
• Projects creating Toys for awareness
  • Designers are creating interesting game situations for children to gain intuition into energy
• Research Projects
  • research Designers are investigating possibilities of energy harvesting in clothing and devices and probing the social consequences

Energy Domains

• Very low energy harvesting (Seeback effect, Peltier Element, Piezo energy)
  • With this kind of energy you can send a signal once in a while, like temperature, or opening a door by a wireless signal
• Middle field, low energy (solar cells, dynamo's for human use)
  • In this domain you can charge your cell phones or smaller devices
    • design example: Little Sun
• High (higher) energy projects
  • think of the solar panels on a roof, to the big wind turbines
    • design example: Roosegaarde bicycle road

Ways of Energy Harvesting

• Tribo electric, rubbing Teflon etc
• scavenging bio energy, plants
  • Cambridge Mosstable: https://biophotovoltaics.wordpress.com/
• Vibrations using piezo elements
• Peltier element using warmth differences
• Solar cells using Sunlight
• dynamo's and muscle energy, like bicycle dynamo's, or dynamo light torches

Proposed energy installations for the Interaction Stations

• Low energy harvesting kit
  • Wuerth kit: http://www.linear.com/solutions/1834
  • Use of Wuerth kit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aSPopIcKLQ
• Telephone charging (fixed) bicycle, an Idea of Otske Penin, student spatila design WdKA
• A game between your muscle power and the sun

Technical details

• harvesting chip: LTC3105
  • Experimenting with LTC3105 and solar cells
• harvesting chip: LTC3588
  • Experimenting with LTC3588 and piezo elements
• Rectifyer bridge
  • Experiments with a Chinese Light Torch