Motivation and Key Challenges for Proposed Energy Harvester for Pipelines
Pipelines used in oil, gas and water distribution often operate in remote areas where access to electrical grids is limited or nonexistent. However, operators continuously rely on monitoring of the pipelines for vibrations and pressure sensing to detect abnormal conditions, prevent possible failures, and reduce environmental/safety risks. The loss or lack of monitoring capabilities in remote pipelines can delay detection and increase the chances of costly damages. A major challenge in these types of environments is powering sensors reliably for extended periods of time. Running new power lines along pipelines would be too costly, and replacing batteries over hundreds of kilometers is labor-intensive and logistically unreasonable. Therefore, the proposed solution of harvesting energy through vibrations is very promising, since the idea would be to convert naturally occurring vibrations from the flow of the fluid into usable electrical power for autonomous sensing systems. Mec...