Energy harvesting from self-sustained aeroelastic limit cycle oscillations of rectangular wings

Three different aspect-ratio rectangular wings are designed and experimentally tested to produce self-sustained aeroelastic oscillations for energy harvesting via implementing a piezoelectric generator. Sensitivity measurements are conducted first to determine the critical conditions producing such oscillations with a dominant frequency of 1 Hz. Furthermore, the energy harvesting performance is maximized as the piezoelectric generator is implemented in parallel with oncoming flow streamline. Approximately 55 mW electricity is produced from a wing with a surface area of 0.025 m2. Unlike conventional wind turbine technology, the present work opens up another possible way to harvest energy via nonlinear aeroelastic oscillations.