Energy Harvesting Performance of a Wing Panel for Aeroelastic Vibration

This paper focuses on the aeroelastic vibration energy harvesting performance of a wing panel. A nonlinear mathematical model of fluid-structure-electric coupling field was established based on the aeroelastic vibration equation and piezoelectric equation. Numerical analysis was performed to explore the influences of the airflow velocity and the piezoelectric material structural parameters on both the dynamic response and the energy harvesting performance. A small experimental wind tunnel and several prototypes of energy harvesters of the wing panel were designed and fabricated. The experimental results show that the vibration amplitude and output power of the wing panel increase with the airflow velocity; the average output power first increases until it attains the maximum values, and then decreases with the increase of the dimensionless length (L-p/L-b) and the thickness of the piezoelectric patch. It shows that the theoretical and experimental results are in good agreement. The experimental optimal output power is 3 mW at the airflow velocity of 12 m/s, and the piezoelectric patch length, width and thickness of 40, 20 and 0.2 mm, respectively. This work provides an effective theoretical and experimental basis for studying energy harvesting and vibration control of airfoil aircrafts.