Resonance-induced enhancement of the energy harvesting performance of piezoelectric flags

The spontaneous flapping of a flag can be used to produce electrical energy from a fluid flow when coupled to a generator. In this paper, the energy harvesting performance of a flag covered by a single pair of polyvinylidene difluoride piezoelectric electrodes is studied both experimentally and numerically. The electrodes are connected to a resistive-inductive circuit that forms a resonant circuit with the piezoelectric's intrinsic capacitance. Compared with purely resistive circuits, the resonance between the circuit and the flag's flapping motion leads to a significant increase in the harvested energy. Our experimental study also validates our fluid-solid-electric nonlinear numerical model. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.