Toward efficient aeroelastic energy harvesting through limit cycle shaping

Benjamin Kirschmeier; Matthew Bryant

doi:10.1117/12.2218437

15 April 2016 Toward efficient aeroelastic energy harvesting through limit cycle shaping

Benjamin Kirschmeier, Matthew Bryant

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9799, Active and Passive Smart Structures and Integrated Systems 2016; 979912 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2218437
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2016, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Abstract

Increasing demand to harvest energy from renewable resources has caused significant research interest in unsteady aerodynamic and hydrodynamic phenomena. Apart from the traditional horizontal axis wind turbines, there has been significant growth in the study of bio-inspired oscillating wings for energy harvesting. These systems are being built to harvest electricity for wireless devices, as well as for large scale mega-watt power generation. Such systems can be driven by aeroelastic flutter phenomena which, beyond a critical wind speed, will cause the system to enter into limitcycle oscillations. When the airfoil enters large amplitude, high frequency motion, leading and trailing edge vortices form and, when properly synchronized with the airfoil kinematics, enhance the energy extraction efficiency of the device. A reduced order dynamic stall model is employed on a nonlinear aeroelastic structural model to investigate whether the parameters of a fully passive aeroelastic device can be tuned to produce limit cycle oscillations at desired kinematics. This process is done through an optimization technique to find the necessary structural parameters to achieve desired structural forces and moments corresponding to a target limit cycle. Structural nonlinearities are explored to determine the essential nonlinearities such that the system’s limit cycle closely matches the desired kinematic trajectory. The results from this process demonstrate that it is possible to tune system parameters such that a desired limit cycle trajectory can be achieved. The simulations also demonstrate that the high efficiencies predicted by previous computational aerodynamics studies can be achieved in fully passive aeroelastic devices.

Citation Download Citation

Benjamin Kirschmeier and Matthew Bryant "Toward efficient aeroelastic energy harvesting through limit cycle shaping", Proc. SPIE 9799, Active and Passive Smart Structures and Integrated Systems 2016, 979912 (15 April 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2218437

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