Performance investigation of piezoaeroelastic energy harvester with trailing-edge flap

Abstract

This paper presents a piezoaeroelastic energy harvester fitted with trailing-edge flap, for simulating three degrees of freedom plunge-pitch-flap motions and capturing the aeroelastic vibration energy. The flap is fitted with the trailing-edge of the airfoil, and restricted by the torsion spring rod. The governing equations of fluid-structure-electric coupled fields are derived. The influence of the harvester parameters on the output characteristic is investigated numerically. Experimental prototype of the harvester is fabricated, and the numerical results are validated by the experimental method. The results demonstrate that the lesser the pitch stiffness coefficient is and the larger the plunge and flap stiffness coefficients are, the larger aeroelastic vibration and the better harvesting performance can be obtained. The vibration mode changes from flutter-induced vibration to vortex-induced vibration at the smaller flap damping coefficient. The plunge amplitude of 0.057 m and output voltage of 32.18 V are harvested at 18 m/s. The output power can be up to 2.63 mW at 300 kΩ. The plunge amplitude and output voltage obtained numerically are in well agreement with the experimental values. The designed piezoaeroelastic harvester can drive the lower-power microelectromechanical system, which can promote the field application in microelectromechanical systems.