On the use of fractal geometry to boost galloping-based wind energy harvesting

Haitao Li, He Ren, Tianyu Zheng, Jian He, Weiyang Qin and Daniil Yurchenko

Energy, 2024, vol. 312, issue C

Abstract: In this study, we introduce fractal bluff bodies to galloping energy harvesters (GEH) to improve the performance of wind energy harvesting. Three basic sectional shapes are proposed for GEH, from which four fractal bluff bodies are developed. An aero-electro-mechanical model with distributed parameters is established to elucidate the underlying mechanism. Then numerical simulations and wind tunnel tests are conducted based on a fabricated prototype. Compared with the conventional galloping energy harvester with a cuboid bluff body (GEH-CB), the GEH with a fractal bluff body (GEH-FB) owns a lower cut-in wind speed and can generate higher voltages. The galloping critical wind speed for GEH-FB is reduced by 0.4 m/s. Furthermore, the output voltage can increase by 51.97 % at the wind speed of 5 m/s. Especially, compared to the GEH-CB, the GEH-FB demonstrates a great advantage in terms of power density, being approximately 164.1 % higher. Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (3D-CFD) shows that the wake vortex area and the space between the adjacent vortices both increase, which explains the aerodynamic mechanism of a large aerodynamic force and a performance enhancement in wind galloping energy harvesting. Finally, some practical application tests exhibit the effectiveness of the proposed fractal galloping harvesters.

Keywords: Wind energy; Fractal bluff body; Galloping; Piezoelectric energy harvesting; CFD (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:312:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224032808

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.133504

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