Order of magnitude increase in power from flow-induced vibrations

Abstract

Natural hydro environments such as rivers and ocean currents provide abundant and essentially free sources of kinetic energy. Although significant research has been devoted to harnessing this power through traditional turbine systems, there are also studies on the novel use of flow-induced vibration of a bluff body. The large oscillations of an elliptical cylinder resulting from the newly-discovered hyper branch have raised interesting questions about its potential as a source of effective renewable energy. This study investigates the power extraction characteristics of the hyper branch over a range of flow velocities. A factor-of-ten increase in the maximum time-mean power coefficient relative to an established flow-induced vibration system — the vortex induced vibration for aquatic clean energy converter is demonstrated. This suggests the possibility of a new and effective strategy to utilise flow-induced vibrations for energy generation and could help drive the commercial implementation and uptake of oscillating energy converters.