The effect of flexibly mounted piezoelectric eel on energy harvesting in the wake of a circular cylinder

Abstract

The current method of producing energy from non-renewable sources may soon come to an end due to the ever-increasing demand for fossil fuels and the implications of escalating global warming. For microelectromechanical systems that only need a few watts of power to operate, an energy harvesting method based on wake flow energy is suggested. When a piezoelectric flag is employed as a cantilever beam and positioned in the wake of a bluff body, the strain exerted in the eel and the electrical voltage generated are ample to operate underwater sensors. The goal of this research is to present an efficient, simple, and resilient energy harvester that uses flow generated oscillations in response to ambient flow and fluid-structure interaction of flexibly mounted piezoelectric eel (pivoted mechanism) with inverted c-shape cylinder. Research objectives are to study the effect of spring stiffness and Gz (Gap along z-axis) on energy harvesting with varying Velocity. It was concluded from the research that by increasing the spring stiffness Ks i.e., 0.005-0.07 N/mm, velocity from 0.18m/s to 0.36m/s at Gz = 6 results in highest frequency of 0.0887Hz, amplitude to length ratio of 1.4361, and maximum amount of output power 9.25uW.Minimum values were obtained at bottom level of flow at Gz = 10, lower spring stiffness i.e., Ks=0.005 N/mm and lowest flow velocity of 0.18 m/s. While comparing the results with previous studies i.e., Circular, and inverted c-shape cylinder with mechanism of non-pivoted flag, significant amount of increment is observed in flapping frequency, amplitude to length ratio and output power which is 5.47%, 34.13% and 61.12% respectively.