Analysis of Surface Texture on Performance of Cantilever-Based Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Systems Excited by Wind
摘要
Considerable research efforts have been dedicated to the study of piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEH), which use piezoelectric material to convert mechanical vibrations into usable electrical energy. Some efforts have been dedicated to the use of aerodynamic flow as a vibration inducer in structural analysis and energy harvesting researches. Motivated by the constant need of improving the performance of EH systems, the goal of this work is to experimentally investigate the dynamic behavior of cantilever beams excited by wind and used as a PEH. The main idea is to verify if the surface notch pattern is capable of modifying the dynamics of the fluid and structure interaction and, then, improving the electrical energy converted. In this context, piezoelectric harvester devices composed by cantilever beams with different surface notch pattern (holes and grooves) were built and tested in a wind tunnel with varying airflow speeds. In order to verify the influence of the surface patterns in the energy conversion of the cantilever piezoelectric energy harvesting system excited by both mechanical and aerodynamic forces, the devices were submitted to two different experimental tests: impact test and wind tunnel test. To compare the harvesters’ performance, two different indexes were used: Root Mean Square (RMS) value, computed in time domain, and an index based on H2 Norm, computed in frequency domain. The influence of the surface textures of the beams together with the aeroelastic vibration induction is evident with the results obtained in this work. The results showed that a harvester with a certain texture (superficial holes) presented a higher energy conversion compared to harvester with a smooth surface when excited by aerodynamic forces. Thus, it was possible to conclude that different surface notch patterns can modify the fluid and structure interaction of an aeroelastic harvester and improve its performance.