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

Yifan Xia (1, 2) , Sébastien Michelin (1) , Olivier Doaré (2)

1 LadHyX - Laboratoire d'hydrodynamique
2 IMSIA - UMR 9219 - Institut des Sciences de la mécanique et Applications industrielles

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 polyvinylidene difluoride piezoelectricelectrodes 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.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Mechanics [physics]; Fluid mechanics [physics.class-ph]

Yifan Xia, Sébastien Michelin, Olivier Doaré. Resonance-induced enhancement of the energy harvesting performance of piezoelectric flags. Applied Physics Letters, 2015, 107 (26), pp.263901. ⟨10.1063/1.4939117⟩. ⟨hal-01311905⟩