Piezoelectric polymer energy harvesting system fluctuating in a high speed wind-flow around a running electric vehicle

Abstract

The battery of electric vehicles (EVs) is the only power source for the operation of an electric motor, heating and cooling devices, and many other auxiliaries. Therefore, the EV may be vulnerable to electricity shortage during running. It may be good if turbulent flow or vortex induced vibrations occurring around a vehicle body can be transformed into electricity by a piezoelectric energy harvester. In this study, an electric energy harvester has been developed in the forms of thin piezoelectric polymer beams and plates in order to supply auxiliary electric power for EV. The piezoelectric thin beam and plate can be installed as a grill structure or on the surface of a car while two edges of the harvesting structures are fixed and they fluctuate due to the various high-speed airflow-induced vibrations during running of the vehicle. The vortex shedding pressures around the piezoelectric systems and a whole car are computed on the basis of computational fluid dynamic transient analyses with FLUENT. The displacements and resulting voltages of energy harvesting structures are computed by using ANSYS piezoelectric finite element analyses which use the input loadings of the transient vortex shedding pressures obtained from CFD. As results of analyses, a reasonable amount of electric power applicable for the charge of an EV battery can be harvested from the passing wind around a vehicle. The 0.12 mm-thin PVDF beam-type (260 mm × 10 mm) and the plate-type (75 mm × 30 mm) generated the maximum 61.43 volt and 21.5 mW power and 4.77 volt and 0.191 mW at the air-speed of 90 km h−1 in the wind tunnel tests, respectively. The two types of harvesting systems installed on a car were also tested while driving the real car. The test results showed the good agreements with numerical predictions and wind tunnel test results.

Performance-aware design for piezoelectric energy harvesting optimisation via finite element analysis

“…Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is also used by Kuang and Zhu (2017), who studied a mechanically plunked VPEH for knee-joint motion. Further examples of the use of FEA for VPEHs in the literature can be found in Qian et al (2021), He et al (2020), Kim et al (2020), Tian et al (2020), Upadrashta and , Shi et al (2020), Caetano and Savi (2019), Caetano and Savi (2021). In the aforementioned works, the authors demonstrated that commercial FE software can be used reliably to predict the mechanical and electrical response of VPEHs and evaluate their performance.…”

Structural optimization of laminated leaf-like piezoelectric wind energy harvesters based on topological method

“…8 Because it is very suitable for the abovementioned wireless sensor network and other similar systems, more and more scholars are devoted to the research of piezoelectric wind energy harvesters. [9][10][11] In terms of energy conversion mechanism, many studies used devices similar to windmills or small turbines to convert wind energy into rotational motion to drive piezoelectric elements for power generations. [12][13][14] In the other hand, some investigations indicated that aeroelastic mechanism, such as galloping, 15 flutter, 16 and vortex, 17 has more promising potential in producing an energy harvester in smaller scale.…”

Experiments and Analysis of a Nonlinear Sickle‐Shaped Cantilever Beam Piezoelectric Energy Harvester for Wind Energy Harvesting

“…[34][35][36][37] Among these energy sources, wind energy is relatively abundant and almost ubiquitous, and it is relatively easy to harvest. [38][39][40] Therefore, making piezoelectric wind energy harvesters based on piezoelectric materials has gained great interest. [41][42][43][44] Kan et al [45] designed a piezoelectric wind energy harvester indirectly excited by magnetic field coupling, which obtained a maximum output power of 4.73 mW at a load resistance of 1000 kΩ and a wind speed of 24 m s À1 .…”