Performance potential of fully-passive airborne wind energy system based on flapping airfoil

Abstract

In the field of renewable energy, high-altitude wind energy emerges as a promising source, particularly at altitudes (>300 m) where conventional wind turbines cannot reach. Currently, the Airborne Wind Energy System (AWES) stands as the major technology for high-altitude wind energy harvesting, but confronts challenges including increasing performance enhancement, system robustness, and cost reduction. In response to these challenges, we developed a fully-passive AWES that employs a self-excited flapping airfoil to efficiently transfer wind energy to the ground. We study and optimize this fully-passive AWES with fluid-structure interaction method in a numerical wind tunnel, achieving a notable power coefficient of 1.17 and efficiency of 20 % with an average tether angle near 30°. We find that a thin airfoil with a slight camber near the leading edge outperforms other profiles. Increasing the pitching axis distance, the imbalance distance, the spring stiffness, and the pitching moment of inertia can improve the energy harvesting performance, but decreased the system robustness. We offer essential guidelines for setting initial parameters of the AWES, facilitating the design and deployment of this innovative technology. This work underscore that the fully-passive AWES is capable of realizing high-altitude wind energy harvesting with simplified structure and outstanding energy-harvesting performance.