Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting From Flutter

With the increasing need for alternative sources of energy, a great deal of attention is drawn to harvesting energy from ambient vibration. These vibrations may be caused by fluid forces acting upon a structure. When a flexible structure is subject to a fluid flow, it loses stability at a certain flow velocity and starts to vibrate. This self-induced motion is called flutter where energy is continuously transferred from the fluid to the structure. In this study a piezoelectric film sensor is used as a fluttering object, to convert the motion to electrical energy, and the energy harvesting capacity of the proposed concept is investigated. An experimental setup, composed of data acquisition methods, is designed and the findings are validated by original test data. The results are also compared to similar literature and it is concluded that the proposed energy harvesting technique meets the requirements of the intended application.