Ibnu Taufan, a PhD researcher at UL, discusses vibration research and his particular interest in the ‘dancing bridge’.
For many researchers, the origin of their interest in a particular area of science can be traced back to a particular event or place. For Ibnu Taufan, the link can be found in two specific events – the first involving the longest bridge in Indonesia.
He says: “When I was young, my father and I used to travel by boat from Sumenep (my hometown) to Surabaya (the second largest city after Jakarta).” On the boat, I watched the Suramadu Bridge as it was being built.
“It took six years to complete this bridge.
The second event can be traced back to Taufan’s time studying engineering physics at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember in Surabaya, where he finally got the answer to the question his father asked.
“The pastor explained what happened on the bridge. He showed the famous example of the Tacoma Bridge, which collapsed due to the sound,” said Taufan. “This bridge revolutionized vibration research, making bridges safer around the world.
“I loved math and physics in high school, and, because of his explanation, I loved studying vibrations even more.”
Taufan went on to complete his bachelor’s degree with a special interest in vibration research, and began a career as a product engineer and vibration engineering development at a pump manufacturing company in Indonesia.
“In particular I have been working on research on how to use vibration signals to monitor machine health and reduce excessive movement of structures using vibration control,” he says.
A few years into his career, Taufan was given the opportunity to pursue a PhD in vibrational energy harvesting at the University of Limerick (UL). Intrigued by this new direction of research, Taufan decided to pursue this opportunity and move to Ireland.
“This topic interests me because instead of reducing uncomfortable vibrations (from vehicles), the purpose of this research is to harvest ambient – waste – vibrations from machinery to electricity to power Internet of Things (IoT) sensors for Industrial 4.0 applications,” he told SiliconRepublic.com.
“In this context, I am eager to solve the challenges of vibration research to contribute to industry and society.”
Good vibes
Taufan’s PhD research topic is to develop a broadband piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH) technology to continuously power IoT sensors to maintain prevention and improve performance in Industry 4.0.
“Typically, industry relies on batteries or the power grid to power sensors for machine monitoring purposes. However, these types of power sources are not sustainable and expensive in remote locations,” he explains. “The PVEHs (battery-free devices) created in my PhD can harvest vibrations from the machine itself to power an IoT sensor for real-time machine health monitoring.”
He says the importance of this research lies in its ability to reduce wastage of batteries and over-reliance on the electricity grid.
“Batteries not only contribute to soil and groundwater pollution due to metal waste during their production, but also battery waste contains toxic heavy metals that can cause soil and water pollution in residential areas if not disposed of properly,” said Taufan. “Also, the power grid requires physical cables or wires to thousands of remote sensors which may be impractical and expensive.”
Vibrational energy harvester (VEH) technology, he explains, can be used to power thousands of IoT sensors in remote machine monitoring environments in Industry 4.0. IoT sensors then make the data accessible over the Internet to monitor industrial assets in real time without batteries or electrical connections.
A dance event
In his vibration research, one of Taufan’s favorite topics is resonance, a phenomenon previously mentioned that can cause catastrophic failure in improperly constructed bridges, buildings, trains or aircraft.
Resonance is defined as the phenomenon that occurs when an external vibration matches the natural frequency of a structure, causing the amplitude of the vibration to increase dramatically – although Taufan has a better (and more fun) way of explaining it.
“In simple words, if a person likes certain music (A) he will dance when he hears the music he likes but if he hears other music (B) he does not like, he will not dance.
“A person can be described as a building, as a bridge, and music is a source of external vibration (like the vibration of cars crossing a bridge or the vibration due to the wind).
“The state of the dance is the reason why the bridge can collapse.”
Taufan says that as part of his PhD research, he needs to design a harvester – or structure – that has a natural frequency similar to the machine’s operating frequency (ambient vibration).
“So, the harvester will ‘dance’ when I put it in the machine,” he said. “The dancing element in my harvester will generate high energy that can power IoT sensors for machine monitoring in Industry 4.0.
“That’s why I love resonance, and the math and physics behind it!”
The future of VEH
Taufan believes that in the near future, battery waste can be significantly reduced thanks to his research area, and that VEH tech plays an “important role” in Industry 4.0.
“A maintenance engineer in the plant won’t need to manually monitor equipment or replace batteries for IoT sensors,” he says. “In the railway industry, VEH can be used to monitor the railway condition using IoT sensors.
“The vibration from the railway (due to the crossing of trains) is enough to activate the sensors – therefore, the railway company does not need to monitor the track in the usual way, which causes disruption of the journey.”
He says that some people think that VEH can replace batteries in devices such as smart watches because it has been shown that the vibrations around us when we walk, run or cycle can charge a smartwatch using VEH technology.
“In my opinion,” he says, “the VEH can change a little – but not completely – put new batteries, and charge the rechargeable batteries in our smartwatch. This is because if the total volume of the VEH is small – like inside a smart watch – the natural frequency of the VEH will be higher than 30Hz.
“In this context, the frequency content of ambient vibrations (from human movement) is below 30Hz. It is still an open challenge for VEH researchers to propose VEHs (with small capacity like smart watches) to power these devices without batteries.”
As he is still pursuing his PhD studies, what awaits this researcher when he finishes his studies?
Although he is open to R&D opportunities in the industry, Taufan says he plans to stay in academia.
“I love both teaching and research related to vibration,” he says. “I believe that my expertise and passion for vibration research can contribute to solving many problems related to vibration and stability in industry and society.”
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