Synchronized switch harvesting applied to piezoelectric flags

TL;DR

This study investigates the use of Synchronized Switch Harvesting on Inductor (SSHI) circuits to improve energy harvesting from fluttering piezoelectric plates in flow, demonstrating significant efficiency gains through experiments and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a combined experimental and numerical analysis of SSHI circuits applied to piezoelectric flags, highlighting their impact on energy transfer and system dynamics.

Findings

SSHI circuits significantly increase harvested energy compared to resistive circuits.

Switching process affects flag dynamics, reducing efficiency gains in strongly coupled systems.

Numerical models align well with experimental results, validating the approach.

Abstract

In this article the energy transfer between a flow and a fluttering piezoelectric plate is investigated. In particular, the benefits of the use of a Synchronized Switch Harvesting on Inductor (SSHI) circuit are studied. Both wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulations are conducted in order to analyse the influence of the switching process on the dynamics and the efficiency of the system. Numerical simulations consist of a weakly non-linear model of a plate in axial flow equipped with a single pair of piezoelectric patches, discretized using a Galerkin method where basis functions are the modes of the plate in vacuum. The discretized model is then integrated in time. The results presented in this paper show that a significant improvement of the harvested energy can be obtained using SSHI circuits compared to basic resistive circuits. It is also shown that for strongly coupled systems, the switching process inherent to he SSHI circuit has a significant impact on the dynamics of the flag, which tends to decrease the relative efficiency gain.