Numerical and experimental investigation of the aerodynamic performance of anomalous energy harvester geometries

Abstract

In this study, anomalous geometries were examined computationally and experimentally in terms of their aerodynamic performance as energy harvesters. The main motivation of this study is that most of these geometries, discussed in the present study, have not yet been previously considered as energy harvesters in literature. Some well-known geometries alongside these anomalous models were also investigated for comparison in this current study. The examination was conducted by means of the computational and experimental fluid dynamics approaches where the flow around these different models was analyzed in detail to shed light on the crucial aspects encountered during the flow separation over these various geometries. By this means, the lift coefficients of the investigated harvester geometries were considered as the essential parameter for time-dependent analyses in the numerical simulations since this parameter is the main reason for the flow-induced vibrations. Moreover, experimentally obtained voltages and power curves were compared for different geometries. Based on the root mean square values of the numerical lift coefficients, it was found that the best aerodynamically beneficial model is Model-7 (equal-length 3-tines fork shape) and the worst model is Model-5 (perpendicular plane). Velocity vectors and pressure distributions around these best and worst models were also provided to reveal the main differences in flow structures that may lead to a better design of energy harvester geometry for further studies.