Smart energy harvesting utilizing flow-induced techniques

Abstract

The flow-induced vibration is one of the most common vibrational phenomena in the ambient environment, on which the previous studies were mainly dealing with methodologies as to how to control and reduce vibrations of objects in the flow field. Facing the growing demand of the power supply of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), the energy harvesting technique utilizing multifaceted dynamic effects incurred within natural water flows is a new and meaningful area worth of further research. In this thesis, two novel strategies of the flow-induced vibration energy harvesting techniques were proposed and investigated. One is focused on the flow pattern control with the creative layouts of the bluff bodies. The other could harvest the energy from the reciprocating water flows with the utilization of the torsional vibration mode of the energy harvester. Both methods were firstly proposed and verified in this thesis. The work could not only develop the power output of the energy harvester, but also be applied in the actual hostile ambient environment. The contributions to the research provided by this thesis were made also on the optimization of the proposed topologies with numerous experimental, analytical and computational approaches. The detailed characteristics were investigated and concluded in the thesis to promote the applications of the technologies. The energy storage system was also studied and tested.

Date of Award	10 Nov 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Univerisity of Nottingham
Supervisor	Yueh Jaw Lin (Supervisor), Christian Klumpner (Supervisor) & Dunant Halim (Supervisor)