Enhancing Performance of a Piezoelectric Energy Harvester System for Concurrent Flutter and Vortex-Induced Vibration

Xiaobiao Shan, Haigang Tian, Han Cao and Tao Xie
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Xiaobiao Shan: State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Haigang Tian: State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Han Cao: State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Tao Xie: State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel and efficient energy harvester (EH) system, for capturing simultaneously flutter and vortex-induced vibration. There exists a coupling effect between flexible spring energy harvester (FSEH) and cantilever beam energy harvester (CBEH) in aerodynamic response and output characteristic. Many prototypes of the harvester were manufactured to explore the coupling effect in a wind tunnel. The experimental results demonstrate that FSEH is mainly subjected to flutter-induced vibration and CBEH undergoes vortex-induced vibration. Disturbance of FSEH first takes place, a limited oscillation cycle then occurs, and chaos ultimately happens as airflow velocity increase. Root mean square voltages are more than 11 V for FSEH at beyond 10.52 m/s, which shows the better output performance over the existing harvesters. Vibration response and output voltage of various harvesters are mutually enhanced with each other. An enhancing ratio for FSEH-130-25 is up to 69.6% over FSEH-130-0, while the enhancing ratio for CBEH-130-30 is 198.3% compared to CBEH-0-30. Field application testing manifests that discharging time to power the pedometer is almost twice as long as the charging one for FSEH-130-25 at 14.48 m/s. The current research offers a suggestive guidance for promoting future practical application in micro airfoil aircrafts.

Keywords: nonlinear aeroelastic; vortex-induced vibration; piezoelectric energy harvester; coupling effect; enhancing performance; field application testing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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