Phenomenological model of piezoelectric energy harvesting from galloping oscillations

Abstract

We present an experimentally validated phenomenological model that directly predicts levels of energy harvested from large oscillations of an object subjected to wake galloping. This model is superior to currently used quasisteady models, which are applicable only at low-reduced frequencies and small amplitudes. In the model, the damping controlled instability and manifestation of limit cycle oscillations due to nonlinearities are represented by linear and nonlinear damping terms. The model coefficients are then identified from measurements using analytical expressions obtained by implementing the method of multiple scales. The validation is performed by comparing time series and spectra obtained from the model and experiments.