Abstract
Low-grade renewable energy possesses large reserves and a wide distribution in the environment, but it is far from fully exploited due to the high cost–income ratio when using traditional convertors. A fluid-induced-vibration-based flow energy convertor with a low-cost bent plate as an oscillator is proposed to achieve better energy converting performance for low-grade flow energy conversion. The energy extraction performance and dynamic response of the bent plate are assessed numerically. The results demonstrate that the prescribed single-DOF (degree of freedom) bent plate can reach the maximum efficiency of 29.6% and power coefficient of 2.36 at the relative plunging amplitude of 3.5, while the double-DOF bent plate achieves a maximum efficiency of 37.3% and power coefficient of 1.42 at a smaller amplitude of 1.4. It is discovered that the adoption of pitching motion can help to control the variation pattern of the effective AOA (angle of attack), while the camber of the bent plate also regulates the effective AOA from the geometrical respect. The FIV-based single-DOF convertor can achieve an energy converting efficiency of 29.3% and approach the ideal sinusoidal motion trajectory closely, indicating that the optimal active motion mode can be realized by the passive motion mode with the appropriate choice of the dynamic parameters.
Highlights
Renewable energy (RE) has the strongest prospects for both slowing down climate change and replacing fossil fuels [1], so the development and utilization of RE has been the focus of many studies over the past decades
The single-DOF oscillation energy convertors are simple in construction and have a significant advantage in manufacturing cost compared to the double-DOF convertors
The single-DOF bent plate with prescribed plunging motion is studied first to obtain the potential or limiting energy extraction performance of this convertor, which can guide us choose the optimal structural parameters for the fully passive convertor and check how far the performance of the fully passive convertor is from its limiting
Summary
Renewable energy (RE) has the strongest prospects for both slowing down climate change and replacing fossil fuels [1], so the development and utilization of RE has been the focus of many studies over the past decades. Since many technologies have been developed to convert high-grade RE, including high water-head damps for high-grade water energy and large diameter axial flow wind turbines for high-grade wind energy, the conversion of low-grade RE has attracted increasing attention recently. RE, flow-induced vibration energy is widely distributed in various environments. To achieve vibration-to-electric energy conversion, many vibration-based energy convertors have been proposed [2]. These convertors can be used to power small electronic devices including health monitoring sensors, medical implants, data transmitters, wireless sensors [3], and cameras [4]. Among varied vibration-based energy convertors, the FIV-based (fluid-induced-vibration-based) energy convertors may achieve a higher level of power conversion and even supply power to the grid
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