Search

Micro power generators (MPGs) can harvest electrical power from ambient energy resources in natural environments to operate small-scale electronic devices. Such systems exploit structural vibrations due to cross-flow instabilities through fluid–structure interactions (FSI). Due to attractive features of piezoelectric transducers, we utilize them for vibration-to-electricity conversion in this work. We develop strongly coupled FSI-based computational models to handle large-amplitude structural motions in which unsteady forces exerted by fluid flows on structures, their dynamical responses, and harvested power are directly computed. Our mathematical model for incompressible flows over moving bodies relies on arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) formulation. Our in-house FSI solver primarily works using radial basis interpolation technique for grid morphing. Using broad ranges of fluidic, structural, and electrical parameters, we investigate the power generation performance of two types of MPGs, working through vortex-induced vibrations of a circular cylinder and a fluttering NACA-0012 airfoil, under different excitation conditions. Optimum values of load resistance are found to maximize the harvested power. Furthermore, our findings support the linear analysis, which provides insights into the possible instabilities in the electro-mechanical system. Another salient feature of this research work is the inclusion of cubic nonlinear stiffness in the energy harvesting models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study numerically investigates two-dimensional incompressible flows over elastically mounted foils, undergoing semi-passive and fully passive motion. In our strongly coupled numerical models, we employ linear and cubic stiffness and damping terms in order to examine their highly nonlinear response. The undamped model of the fully passive system exhibits various responses from periodic to chaotic and then to flip-over for the reduced velocity, ranging from 1 to 10. However, introducing the cubic damping terms causes a significant decrease in the magnitude of plunging and pitching amplitudes without affecting the onset point of bifurcation. Also, plunging and pitching amplitudes are altered significantly after the point of onset. Furthermore, the performance metrics of each passive system are computed for power generation applications to demonstrate that semi-passive system attain efficiency up to 20% for a pitching amplitude of 50° with the excitation frequency in the narrow range of 0.15 to 0.20. On the other hand for a fully passive system, the efficiency of around 34% is obtained near the onset point of a bifurcation with a low mass ratio and linear damping terms. However, introducing cubic damping terms causes degradation in efficiency to bring it down to 14 − 20 % for a wide range of reduced velocity. • Nonlinear dynamical models are strongly coupled with an in-house CFD-based solver. • Nonlinear damping and stiffness are introduced in the computational models. • For the semi-passive dynamical system, an efficiency of 20% is attained. • The fully passive system leads to an efficiency of up to 17% for low mass ratios. • Introducing cubic damping degrades the efficiency to 8%–9% for fully-passive foils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nonlinearity and time-dependent nature of hydroelastic slamming along with violent fluid–structure interactions (FSIs) and evolution of free surfaces present great challenges to the numerical modeling. The inherent physical mechanisms of such a violent FSI involved with structural vibrations have not been well investigated so far. In this work, an adaptive element–particle coupling approach is extended to reveal the underlying mechanisms of hydroelastic slamming, which leverages the advantages of grid-based method in accurately modeling structural deformations and fluid flows with small deformations as well as particle method in effectively capturing moving interfaces. After well validating with experimental results, we focus on investigating the flow physics and hydrodynamic loads along with structural hydroelastic performances including wedge kinematics and dynamic responses. It is demonstrated that the plate deformation has minimal influence on the maximum hydrodynamic load in normal slamming, whereas it has significant effects in oblique slamming. Both rolling free surfaces and waves around the plate ends may affect the distribution of hydrodynamic loads on the elastic structure. For kinematics and dynamic responses of the structure under slamming loads, different configurations of deformation and stages of motion are identified. With increasing deadrise angle, the structural deformation becomes more pronounced and later gets smaller for a large structural flexibility. However, it may decrease in a direct manner with an increase in the deadrise angle when a smaller plate flexibility is adopted. Further, the important phenomenon of structural vibration is studied with typical influencing factors analyzed. A novel empirical formulation is proposed to predict vibrational characteristics of the wedge during hydroelastic slamming processes. This relation is unified and applicable for a broad of scenarios from normal to oblique slamming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro-power generators are increasingly becoming popular to meet the power requirements of micro-electromechanical systems, such as small sensors. One such resource of harnessing energy is through exploiting flow instabilities found in vortex-induced vibrations, flutter, etc. In this work, we numerically investigate the hydrodynamic performance of fully forced flapping foils with the goal to exploit their underlying physical mechanisms for the development of micro-power generators. We consider prescribed combination of plunging and pitching motions imposed to a NACA-0012 airfoil. We conduct a parametric study by varying the Strouhal number and the amplitude of the pitching angle to identify two operational flow regimes: power generation and thrust-producing propulsion using the feathering criterion. In the latter regime, the foil performs positive work on the surrounding fluid and therefore, the positive propulsive efficiency can be attained as long as the horizontal hydrodynamic force remains negative. For the power generation regime, the product of the lift force and plunging velocity is found mostly positive over the oscillating cycle, which indicates that the flowing fluid carries out work on the foil. The parametric study reveals that the foil can reach up to 42% power generation efficiency when setting the pitching amplitude in the range of 60° to 70°. For foils operating in the power generation regime, we present a piezoelectric energy harvester that can efficiently harness usable electric power from high fluid pressure regions. We identify two core locations based on the pressure field at which the attachment of piezoelectric patches can lead to significant energy harvesting. As such, the present study provides guidance for the design enhancement of micro-power generators relying on the interactions of flapping foils with the surrounding fluid. • Develop a computational model to simulate incompressible flows over moving bodies. • Analyze the hydrodynamic characteristics and propulsive efficiency of flapping foils. • Identify the flow regimes of flapping foils: power generation and thrust-producing propulsion. • Propose a design of a piezoelectric energy harvester. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydroelastic fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems usually involve nonlinear free surface flows, large structure deformations and changing interfaces, which present great challenges for numerical modeling. To deal with violent FSIs, the authors proposed a multi-resolution smoothed particle element method (M-SPEM), which adaptively simulates local fluid regions with an improved smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method and models other solid/fluid regions with a smoothed finite element method (S-FEM). Both computational accuracy in local fluid domain and entire efficiency can be improved by M-SPEM compared with the conventional partitioned FSI solvers based on SPH-FEM coupling schemes. In this work, an improved M-SPEM is developed and extended to simulate the complex hydroelastic FSI problems with structural deformations considered in the numerical model. To solve the accuracy reduction problem in the multi-resolution simulations, we developed a velocity and position correction technique for the generated fluid and virtual particles. The computational results demonstrated that the new correction technique can effectively improve the computational accuracy of M-SPEM while the corrected schemes produce results very close to the reference ones. The positions of the generated particles should also be appropriately optimized during the element-particle conversion process. With both accuracy and efficiency improved, the improved M-SPEM is proven to be suitable to deal with some challenging hydroelastic FSI problems. • An improved M-SPEM approach is developed to model hydroelastic FSI problems. • The velocity and position correction technique is proposed to improve the computational accuracy. • The improved M-SPEM can greatly save computational cost compared to the general FEM-SPH coupling approaches. • The multi-resolution interfaces between elements and particles are handled by splitting ghost particles. • The M-SPEM is very effective for modeling challenging FSI problems involved with large structural deformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]