Optimisation of an Aeroelastic Flutter Energy Harvester

This work is an investigation into approaches to optimising an aeroelastic utter energy harvester in order to maximise power output. The utter harvester was represented by a nonlinear two degree of freedom system coupled with a linear piezoelectric patch model. The energy harvester model was first optimised under steady state conditions and uniform flow speeds, to determine the values of tunable system parameters for which the power output is maximised. Parameters were then compared for their effectiveness and tuning ability. Furthermore, the performance of the harvester was also assessed at various flow distributions, since the uniform flow speed case is very idealistic. The assessment was carried out for different schemes for tuning the main system parameter for optimal energy generation. In these preliminary results the piezoelectric resistance was tuned to optimise the energy harvester and also used to test the tuning schemes. The three tuning schemes were; periodically setting the parameter, periodically sampling for a steady state before setting the parameter, and continuously varying the parameter.