Energy harvesting eel

Abstract

Experiments were performed to investigate the possibility of using flexible piezoelectric membranes as power generation devices in the ocean. These membranes are excited by the von Kármán vortex street forming behind a bluff body. Experiments show a number of flow regimes, ranging from poorly coupled, where the membrane essentially acts as splitter plate and suppresses vortex shedding, to an optimally coupled state, where the membrane oscillates at the natural frequency of the undisturbed wake. The details of the interaction between the wake vortices and the membrane are studied using Particle Image Velocimetry and interpreted using topological concepts.