Hydrokinetic Vortex Induced Vibration (VIV) Energy Harvester

Abstract

Abstract This paper investigates the performance of vortex-induced vibration (VIV) energy harvester in low-speed water flow. The proposed VIV harvester is extracting hydrokinetic energy from the flowing current and transferring it into mechanical vibrations. The vibrations are further converted into electrical energy using the piezoelectric transducer to supply the modern demand for energy-consumption. To meet the demand, the single harvester is analyzed to determine the suitable geometry for the bluff body that is sensitive to the low-speed flow. Furthermore, the converter must be able to harvest vibrations of varying amplitudes and frequencies. To maximize the power output, different array configurations of multiple bluff bodies are examined. A single positively buoyant elastically mounted cylinder is tested experimentally and at a low flow speed of 0.3 m/s, it can harvest vibrations with an average frequency of 1.8 Hz and peak to peak amplitude of 1.5d, where d is the diameter of the bluff body. It was found that for an array consisting of ten bluff bodies, the average frequency and peak to peak amplitude increases to 2.09Hz and 1.54d, respectively.