Vibration performance of a flow energy converter behind two side-by-side cylinders

Abstract

Flow-induced vibrations of a flexible cantilever plate, placed in various positions behind two side-by-side cylinders, were computationally investigated to determine optimal location for wake-excited energy harvesters. In the present study, the cylinders of equal diameter D were fixed at center-to-center gap ratio of T/D = 1.7 and immersed in sub-critical flow of Reynold number ReD = 10, 000. A three-dimensional Navier-Stokes flow solver in an Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) description was closely coupled to a non-linear finite element structural solver that was used to model the dynamics of a composite piezoelectric plate. The cantilever plate was fixed at several positions between 0.5 < x/D < 1.5 and -0.85 < y/D < 0.85 measured from the center gap between cylinders, and their flow-induced oscillations were compiled and analyzed. The results indicate that flexible plates located at the centerline between the cylinder pairs experience the lowest mean amplitude of oscillation. Maximum overall amplitude in oscillation is predicted when flexible plates are located in the intermediate off-center region downstream of both cylinders. Present findings indicate potential to further maximize wake-induced energy harvesting plates by exploiting their favorable positioning in the wake region behind two side-by-side cylinders. © 2019 by the authors.