Resonance-induced enhancement of the energy harvesting performance of piezoelectric flags

Abstract

The spontaneous flapping of a flag can be used to produce electrical energy from a fluid flow when coupled to a generator. In this paper, the energy harvesting performance of a flag covered by a single pair of PVDF piezoelectric electrodes is studied both experimentally and numerically. The electrodes are connected to a resistive-inductive circuit that forms a resonant circuit with the piezoelectric's intrinsic capacitance. Compared with purely resistive circuits, the resonance between the circuit and the flag's flapping motion leads to a significant increase in the harvested energy. Our experimental study also validates our fluid-solid-electric nonlinear numerical model.

5 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Applied Physics Letters

References in corpus (3)

• Energy harvesting efficiency of piezoelectric flags in axial flows
• Influence and optimization of the electrodes position in a piezoelectric energy harvesting flag
• Fluid-solid-electric lock-in of energy-harvesting piezoelectric flags

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Synchronized switch harvesting applied to piezoelectric flags
• Electro-hydrodynamic synchronization of piezoelectric flags
• Fluid-solid-electric energy transport along piezoelectric flags