Simulation and analysis of the aeroelastic-galloping-based piezoelectric energy harvester utilizing FEM and CFD

Due to a large oscillation amplitude, galloping can be an admissible scenario to actuate the piezoelectric-based energy harvester. In the case of harvesting energy from galloping vibrations, a prismatic bluff body is attached on the free end of a piezoelectric cantilever beam and the oscillation occurs in a plane normal to the incoming flow. The electrical power then can be extracted from the piezoelectric sheet bonded in the cantilever structure due to the dynamic strain. This study is proposed to develop a theoretical model of a galloping-based piezoelectric energy harvester. A FEM procedure is utilized to determine dynamic characteristics of the structure. Whereas the aerodynamic lift and drag coefficients of the tip bluff body are determined using CDF. The results show that the present method gives precise results of the power generated by harvester. It was found that D-section yields the greatest galloping behavior and hence the maximum power.