On The Use of Computational Fluid Dynamics for Evaluation of Nonlinear Hydrodynamic Galloping Energy Harvester Performance

摘要

The fluid-structure interactions, such as single and multi-mode galloping, are well documented sources of undesired vibration in civil engineering applications. That mechanism is explored here as a renewable energy source. The behavior of a galloping fluid-structure interaction are modeled in a quasi-steady fashion by using the steady-state lift coefficients for dynamic calculations. To develop and evaluate device designs, the lift information must be known in advance. Obtaining these values by physical experiment requires expensive wind or water tunnel setups. Alternatively,computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is widely used by industry as a cost effective way to obtain information about specific fluid flow regimes without requiring experimental setups. Using the simulated coefficient values, the dynamics can be treated as a non-linear feedback system. This nonlinear system is conducive to describing function methods and can be analyzed by many of the techniques from classical control theory. The CFD lift data is used to formulate evaluations for device operation and, where applicable, compared and contrasted to evaluations based on experimental lift data.