A vibration energy harvesting system for Self-Powered applications in heavy railways

[Display omitted] •A vibration energy harvester is presented for self-powered sensors of heavy railways.•Two-way rotation is converted to one-way rotation using a two-ball pair mechanism.•Sinusoidal input is used to validate the proposed system during simulation analysis.•Modeling and experiments achieved a maximum performance of 48.3% with 0.928 W output. Heavy-duty trains with intelligent autonomous rail transit systems play an essential role in transporting goods and storing a large amount of energy to make it more sustainable. This paper presents a vibration energy harvesting system using a two-ball pair mechanism to collect track vibration for power sensors of a heavy railway network. The track vibration input module, motion conversion module, generator module, and energy storage module are essential subdivisions of the proposed system. The reciprocating linear vibrations of the track are transferred to the motion conversion module via the track vibration input module. The motion conversion module converts the vertical vibration into unidirectional rotation by employing a two-ball pair mechanism. The generator module utilizes the unidirectional rotary motion to generate electricity and is stored in an energy storage module. The performance of the energy harvesting system is evaluated based on simulation and experimental analyses under similar boundary conditions and found a good agreement between the results. The results indicate a maximum performance of 48.3% with an output power of 0.928 W, and this power is sufficient for self-propelled applications around heavy railways.