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A review on active wind energy harvesting designs

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Abstract

This paper aims to review various designs and effects of vibrations generated by fluids, different bluff bodies, aeroelastic instabilities, and study the methods for harvesting their energies by means of piezoelectric materials. Wind based energy harvesting is increasingly pursued due to the ubiquitous nature of excitation source as well as the strong correlation with other types of excitation. Vortex-induced vibrations (VIV), as well as vibrations induced by bluff bodies, and the effect of their own shape on potential gains has been investigated. In addition, the effect of aeroelastic instability phenomenon such as fluttering and galloping on energy generation is investigated. The energy generation density of various methods is evaluated by comparing the gains of different approaches. The study results show that energy densities and peak power outputs vary widely depending on device configuration and instability phenomenon. Additionally, peak power output versus bandwidth varies greatly between the phenomena suggesting specialized applications for a given phenomenon. Through these study results, new research paths to move forward in this field are suggested when paired with the latest examples at active energy harvesting.

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  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Alabama, Box 870276, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA

    Andrew Truitt & S. Nima Mahmoodi

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Truitt, A., Mahmoodi, S.N. A review on active wind energy harvesting designs. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 14, 1667–1675 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-013-0226-4

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