Energy harvesting from flow induced vibration; study using a distributed parameter model

Abstract Energy harvesting from ambient vibration gained attention in the last decade to self power devices which need very low electric input. This finds applications in powering wireless sensor networks, structural health monitoring and human implants. In this work, the possibility of harnessing vibration energy from flow induced vibration is investigated numerically. A fluid stream passing over a bluff body make the body to oscillate due to vortex shedding. Piezoelectric transduction can be used to capture this energy from the oscillator by proper design of a mechanism. The governing equation for the distributed system was obtained using extended Hamilton principle followed by modal analysis. Continuous system model with a rigid support at the joint in the fluid flow is considered. Different wake oscillator models are considered and its effectiveness is investigated. Facchinetti model gives better representative result for the wake. Optimization using genetic alogorthm is performed to identify the values of parameters for maximum energy harvesting and to reduce primary system vibration.</jats:p