Generating electric energy from mechanical vibration using a piezoelectric circular membrane array is presented in this paper.The electrical characteristics of the functional array consisted of three plates with varies tip masses are examined under dynamic conditions.With an optimal load resistor of 11 k,an output power of 21.4 m W was generated from the array in parallel connection at 150 Hz under a pre-stress of 0.8 N and a vibration acceleration of9.8 m/s2.Moreover,the broadband energy harvesting using this array still can be realized with different tip masses.Three obvious output power peaks can be obtained in a frequency spectra of 110 Hz to 260 Hz.The results show that using a piezoelectric circular diaphragm array can increase significantly the output of energy compared with the use of a single plate.And by optimizing combination of tip masses with piezoelectric elements in array,the frequency range can be tuned to meet the broadband vibration.This array may possibly be exploited to design the energy harvesting for practical applications such as future high speed rail.
The magnetism and magnetocaloric effect in Er1-xGdxCoAl（x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1） were investigated. The Er1-xGdxCoAl compounds were synthesized by arc melting. With the increasing Gd content, the N′eel temperature（T N）linearly increases from 14 K to 102 K, while the magnetic entropy change（-？S M） tends to decrease nonmonotonously.Under the field change from 0 T to 5 T, the-？S M of the compounds with x = 0.2–1 are stable around 10 J/kg·K, then a cooling platform between 20 K and 100 K can be formed by combining these compounds. For x = 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, the compounds undergo two successive magnetic transitions, one antiferromagnetism to ferromagnetism and the other ferromagnetism to paramagnetism, with increasing temperature. The two continuous magnetic transitions in this series are advantageous to broaden the temperature span of half-peak width（δT） in the-？S M–T curve and improve the refrigeration capacity.
The magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect（MCE） in EuTi1-xCoxO3（x = 0, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075, 0.1） compounds have been investigated. When the Ti^4＋ ions were substituted by Co2＋ions, the delicate balance was changed between antiferromagnetic（AFM） and ferromagnetic（FM） phases in the EuTiO3 compound. In EuTi1-xCoxO3 system, a giant reversible MCE and large refrigerant capacity（RC） were observed without hysteresis. The values of -△SM^max were evaluated to be around 10 J·kg^-1·K^-1 for EuTi0.95Co0.05O3 under a magnetic field change of 10 kOe. The giant reversible MCE and large RC suggests that EuTi1-xCoxO3 series could be considered as good candidate materials for low-temperature and low-field magnetic refrigerant.
A large reversible magnetocaloric effect accompanied by a second order magnetic phase transition from PM to FM is observed in the Ho Pd compound. Under the magnetic field change of 0–5 T, the magnetic entropy change-ΔS max M and the refrigerant capacity RC for the compound are evaluated to be 20 J/（kg·K） and 342 J/kg, respectively. In particular,large-ΔS max M（11.3 J/（kg·K）） and RC（142 J/kg） are achieved under a low magnetic field change of 0–2 T with no thermal hysteresis and magnetic hysteresis loss. The large reversible magnetocaloric effect（both the large-ΔS M and the high RC）indicates that Ho Pd is a promising material for magnetic refrigeration at low temperature.
