Metamaterials and phononic crystals (PCs) with artificially designed periodic microstructures have attracted increasing research interests due to their unique properties that cannot be easily realized in natural materials. In recent years, the applications of metamaterials and PCs have been extended into the field of energy harvesting. A direct integration design strategy can yield a multifunctional system to suppress undesired vibrations/noise and convert them into electrical energy for providing power supply to widely distributed micro-electromechanical systems. Moreover, the defect state mode of metamaterials/PCs can localize the energy with an amplification effect, which has a great potential for improving energy harvesting efficiency. In addition, through tailoring the refractive index profile of metamaterials/PCs, the wave focusing phenomenon can be realized to boost the energy harvesting efficiency over a wide frequency range. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art advances in this direction over the past decade. According to the design strategies and working mechanisms, the existing studies in the literature on this topic are outlined and classified into three different categories. The advantages and disadvantages of various configurations are compared. The potential solutions to the existing drawbacks are discussed. An outlook on future prospects in this area is provided.

To improve the efficiency of energy harvesting, this paper presents a tri-stable energy harvesting device, which can realize inter-well oscillation at low-frequency base excitation and obtain a high harvesting efficiency by tri-stable coherence resonance. First, the model of a magnetic coupling tri-stable piezoelectric energy harvester is established and the corresponding equations are derived. The formula for the magnetic repulsion force between three magnets is given. Then, the dynamic responses of a system subject to harmonic excitation and Gaussian white noise excitation are explored by a numerical method and validated by experiments. Compared with a bi-stable energy harvester, the threshold for inter-well oscillation to occur can be moved forward to the low frequency, and the tri-stable device can create a dense high output voltage and power at the low intensity of stochastic excitation. Results show that for a definite deterministic or stochastic excitation, the system can be optimally designed such that it increases the frequency bandwidth and achieves a high energy harvesting efficiency at coherence resonance.

We investigated the energy harvesting of a vertical beam with tip mass under vertical excitations. We applied dynamic unstability and internal resonance to improve the efficiency of harvesting. The experiments of harmonic excitation were carried out. Results show that for the beam there exist internal resonances in the dynamically unstable and the buckling bistable cases. The dynamic unstability is a determinant for strong internal resonance or mode coupling, which can be used to create a large output from piezoelectric patches. Then, the experiments of stochastic excitation were carried out. Results prove that the internal resonance or mode coupling can transfer the excitation energy to the low order modes, mainly the first and the second one. This can bring about a large output voltage. For a stochastic excitation, it is proved that there is an optimal weight of tip mass for realizing internal resonance and producing large outputs.

In recent years, metamaterials for the applications in low-frequency vibration suppression and noise reduction have attracted numerous research interests. This paper proposes a metamaterial system with local resonators from adjunct unit cells coupled by negative stiffness springs. Frist, a lumped parameter model of the system is developed, and a stability criterion is derived. The band structure of the infinite lattice model is calculated. The result reveals the appearance of extra band gaps in the proposed metamaterial. A parametric study shows that the first extra band gap can be tuned to ultralow frequency by controlling the negative stiffness of the coupling springs. A transmittance analysis of the finite lattice model verifies the predictions obtained from the band structure analysis. Subsequently, the work is extended to a distributed parameter metamaterial beam model with the proposed configuration of coupled local resonators. The stability analysis shows that the infinitely long metamaterial beam becomes unstable as long as the stiffness of the coupling spring becomes negative. For the finitely long metamaterial beam, the stability could be achieved for negative coupling springs of given stiffnesses. The effects of the number of cells and the lattice constant on the system stability are investigated. The transmittance of the finitely long metamaterial beam is calculated. The result shows that due to the restriction on the tunability of negative stiffness for the proposed metamaterial beam, a quasistatic vibration suppression region can only be achieved when the number of cells is small.

During the past decade, metamaterial-based vibration energy harvesters (meta-VEHs) have been increasingly developed owing to the extraordinary characteristics of metamaterials, such as locally resonant bandgap, defect state, and wave focusing features. In this paper, the interface state, a feature recently found in topological metamaterials, is exploited for low-frequency vibration energy harvesting. The topological meta-VEH consists of two kinds of locally resonant metamaterials with different topological phases and a piezoelectric transducer being installed at the interface between these two metamaterials. First, the governing equations of the topological meta-VEH are established based on the mass–spring model. Subsequently, the dispersion relation of such a one-dimensional topological meta-VEH is obtained by applying Bloch's theorem. It is revealed that the interface mode can be attained in the low-frequency range through the band folding of the locally resonant metamaterial. Moreover, the finitely long model of this topological meta-VEH is built, and the transmittance response is calculated both analytically and numerically. Subsequently, the potential benefits of topological metamaterial, including wave localization and topological protection, are thoroughly investigated. It is found that the elastic energy in the interface state is localized at the interface position, resulting in a significant improvement in output power. Meanwhile, the topological protection property can significantly improve the robustness of the interface mode, thus achieving outstanding energy harvesting performance. Finally, to further enhance the energy harvesting performance, the stiffness tuning method and the defect enhancement method are proposed. It is found that integrating the defect mode and interface mode not only improves the output voltage but also achieves the capability of a highly robust energy harvesting.