Mechanical and energy-harvesting model for electromagnetic inertial mass dampers

•An inerter-based damper is employed for vibration mitigation and energy harvesting.•A new nonlinear mechanical model is proposed and validated for an EIMD.•A model is proposed to predict the energy-harvesting performance of an EIMD. Recently, a novel inerter-based damper termed electromagnetic inertial mass damper (EIMD) that is capable of generating a large inertance and providing a controllable electromagnetic (EM) damping has been used as an energy dissipation device for seismic response control. Structural vibration energy induced by external loading is converted into electricity via the EIMD, for being dissipated and harvested. In this paper, the EIMD is proposed for simultaneous vibration mitigation and energy harvesting for the first time. A new mechanical model is proposed to predict the nonlinear behavior of the EIMD, and a linearized model is subsequently deduced based on the equal energy dissipation rule. In addition, an energy-harvesting model is presented to predict the output power and energy harvesting efficiency of the EIMD. To maximize the efficiency of the EIMD, this paper derives the corresponding optimal load resistance that can serve as the design criteria for an energy harvesting circuit (EHC). The proposed models are validated by the dynamic test of a prototype EIMD using harmonic excitation.