FLuttering Energy Harvester for Autonomous Powering (FLEHAP): aeroelastic characterisation and preliminary performance evaluation

Wind energy harvesting technology can convert wind energy into electric energy to supply power for microelectronic devices. It has great potential in many specific applications and environments, such as remote areas, sea surfaces, mountains, and so on. Over the past few years, flutter‐based wind energy harvesting, which generates electric energy based on the limit cycle oscillation created by structural aeroelastic instability, has received increasing attention, and as a consequence, different energy harvesting structures, theories, and methods have been proposed. In this paper, three types of flutter‐based energy harvesters (FEHs) including airfoil‐based, flat plate‐based, and flexible body‐based FEHs are reviewed, and related concepts and theoretical models are introduced. The recent progress in FEH performance enhancement methods is classified into structural improvement and optimization, the introduction of nonlinearity, and hybrid structures and mechanisms. Finally, the main FEH challenges are summarized, and future research directions are discussed.

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Section: Principle and Structural Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Performance Enhancementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent progress on flutter‐based wind energy harvesting

Zhou

Yang

2022

Int Journal of Mech Sys Dyn

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“…1.10 0.76 5 2.01 0.92 11 4.56 0.98 Figure 16: Experimental realization of side-by-side array made by three devices exploiting elastically-bounded plates (similar to those of Refs. [28,29]). overall power coefficient associated with the whole arrayC tot P as:…”

Section: Side-by-side Arrangementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each of the three components is similar to the devices already presented in Refs. [28,29] and is briefly described as follows. A 0.1mm-thick foil made of polyvinil acetate, with planform dimensions c = 30mm and s = 65mm, is glued to a brass rod that is connected (allowing free rotation) to four elastomeric elements made of siliconic rubber, aligned with the streamwise direction and pre-stretched so that, following Ref.…”

Section: Wind-tunnel Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this work, we focus on an aeroelastic system based on elastically-anchored plates experiencing a fluttering instability when invested by laminar flow, giving rise to finite-amplitude limit cycle oscillations (LCOs) and flapping motions [26][27][28][29][30]. Previous related work addressed the identification of the critical threshold for sustained flapping [27,28] and a first characterization of the postcritical behaviour for a representative configuration of the real device [29], as well as the development of an experimental prototype equipped for energy extraction by electromagnetic coupling [30]. Overall, we aim at developing EH devices of centimetric size able to extract electrical power O(mW) in low wind conditions (i.e., U < 5 m/s).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Constructive interference in a network of elastically-bounded flapping plates

Olivieri

Boragno

Verzicco

et al. 2019

Journal of Fluids and Structures

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Aeroelastic phenomena are gaining significant attention from the perspective of energy harvesting (EH) with promising applications in supplying low-power remote sensors. Besides the development of individual EH devices, further issues are posed when considering multiple objects for realizing arrays of devices and magnifying the extracted power. Due to nonlinear mutual interactions, the resulting dynamics is generally different from that of single devices and the setup optimisation turns out to be nontrivial. In this work, we investigate the problem focusing on a flutter-based EH system consisting of a rigid plate anchored by elastic elements and invested by a uniform laminar flow, undergoing regular limit-cycle oscillations and flapping motions of finite amplitude. We consider a simplified, yet general, physical model and employ three-dimensional direct numerical simulations based on a finite-difference Navier-Stokes solver combined with a moving-least-squares immersed boundary method. Focusing on main kinematic and performancerelated quantities, we first report on the dynamics of the single device and then on multiple devices, considering different arrangements (i.e.: in-line, staggered and side-by-side). A parametric exploration is performed by varying the mutual distance between the devices and insights are provided. For the in-line arrangement, a recovery in performance for downstream devices is achieved by tuning their elasticity. Moreover, cooperative effects in the side-by-side arrangement are found to be substantially beneficial in terms of resulting power, with increases (i.e. constructive interference) up to 100% with respect to the single-device configuration. In order to confirm this numerical evidence, complementary results from wind-tunnel experiments are presented. Finally, we describe the system behaviour when increasing further the number of devices, outlining the ultimate goal of developing a high-performance EH network of numerous aeroelastic energy harvesters.

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