Triboelectric-electromagnetic hybrid nanogenerators for hydrological monitoring

In order to accelerate the construction of smart cities, this paper designs a new type of triboelectric-electromagnetic hybrid sensor for pipeline monitoring is designed to monitor the flow sensing of large aperture residential water pipeline (TEH). The design of the TEH includes a thumb-triboelectric nanogenerator (T-TENG) and an electromagnetic generator (EMG). The external detection system can accurately locate the current water speed of the pipe according to the different voltage signals output from T-TENG. And the system can accurately calculate the pipeline water output according to the output voltage signal of EMG and the current water speed. The principle and design of the TEH is explained in detail, and the validity and superiority are proved by experiments. It is proved that the voltage signals of T-TENG and EMG have good linear relationship with water flow speed. The TEH’s monitored water flow velocity range of 0.29–2.17 m/s was confirmed by the established pipeline monitoring system. The error is only 0.94 % compared to the actual measured water volume. In addition, the wind speed monitoring experiments also proved that T-TENG is also very responsive to wind speed monitoring. This provides a new scheme for flow monitoring of large aperture pipelines.