Regular and chaotic vibration in a piezoelectric energy harvester with fractional damping

We examine a vibrational energy harvester consisting of a mechanical resonator with a fractional damping and electrical circuit coupled by a piezoelectric converter. By comparing the bifurcation diagrams and the power output we show that the fractional order of damping changes the system response considerably and affects the power output. Various dynamic responses of the energy harvester are examined using phase trajectory, Fourier spectrum, Multi-scale entropy and 0–1 test. The numerical analysis shows that the fractionally damped energy harvesting system exhibits chaos, and periodic motion, as the fractional order changes. The observed bifurcations strongly influence the power output.