A piezoelectric wind-induced vibration energy harvester via the Venturi effect
Mengsong Zhu, Zhenli Kuang, Weilin Liao, Jinbo Zhang, Linfei Fu, Zhonghua Zhang, Junwu Kan
Abstract
In this Letter, the Venturi effect is introduced to change the vibration behaviors of a downwind bluff body and a piezoelectric wind-induced vibration energy harvester using the Venturi effect (VE-PWVEH) is reported to offer an alternative solution to enable a high-performance downwind PWVEH. Also, the power generation characteristics were readily adjusted by the flow channel forming the Venturi effect without modifying the PWVEH structure. So, the VE-PWVEH could possess both great power-generating capability at low wind speed and strong robustness at high wind speed. The results demonstrated that both the output voltage and cut-in wind speed were affected by the attack angle of two rectangular plates used for stimulating the constricted channel. There was an optimal attack angle of 60° where a maximum peak voltage of the VE-PWVEH was increased by 621% and the cut-in wind speed was reduced by 171% compared with the harvester without the Venturi effect. Besides, it demonstrated the VE-PWVEH could achieve an output power of 0.863 mW and illuminate about 120 blue LEDs in series. The introduction of the Venturi effect provides a simple and viable method of flow field disturbance to tune the performance of PWVEHs.