Flow energy piezoelectric bimorph nozzle harvester

Stewart Sherrit; Hyeong Jae Lee; Phillip Walkemeyer; Jennifer Hasenoehrl; Jeffrey L. Hall; Tim Colonius; Luis Phillipe Tosi; Alvaro Arrazola; Namhyo Kim; Kai Sun; Gary Corbett

doi:10.1117/12.2045191

1 April 2014 Flow energy piezoelectric bimorph nozzle harvester

Stewart Sherrit, Hyeong Jae Lee, Phillip Walkemeyer, Jennifer Hasenoehrl, Jeffrey L. Hall, Tim Colonius, Luis Phillipe Tosi, Alvaro Arrazola, Namhyo Kim, Kai Sun, Gary Corbett

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9057, Active and Passive Smart Structures and Integrated Systems 2014; 90570D (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2045191
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2014, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

There is a need for a long-life power generation scheme that could be used downhole in an oil well to produce 1 Watt average power. There are a variety of existing or proposed energy harvesting schemes that could be used in this environment but each of these has its own limitations. The vibrating piezoelectric structure is in principle capable of operating for very long lifetimes (decades) thereby possibly overcoming a principle limitation of existing technology based on rotating turbo-machinery. In order to determine the feasibility of using piezoelectrics to produce suitable flow energy harvesting, we surveyed experimentally a variety of nozzle configurations that could be used to excite a vibrating piezoelectric structure in such a way as to enable conversion of flow energy into useful amounts of electrical power. These included reed structures, spring mass-structures, drag and lift bluff bodies and a variety of nozzles with varying flow profiles. Although not an exhaustive survey we identified a spline nozzle/piezoelectric bimorph system that experimentally produced up to 3.4 mW per bimorph. This paper will discuss these results and present our initial analyses of the device using dimensional analysis and constitutive electromechanical modeling. The analysis suggests that an order-of-magnitude improvement in power generation from the current design is possible.

Citation Download Citation

Stewart Sherrit, Hyeong Jae Lee, Phillip Walkemeyer, Jennifer Hasenoehrl, Jeffrey L. Hall, Tim Colonius, Luis Phillipe Tosi, Alvaro Arrazola, Namhyo Kim, Kai Sun, and Gary Corbett "Flow energy piezoelectric bimorph nozzle harvester", Proc. SPIE 9057, Active and Passive Smart Structures and Integrated Systems 2014, 90570D (1 April 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2045191

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