• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.67-90
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• 2017

The interdisciplinary research area of small scale energy harvesting has attracted tremendous interests in the past decades, with a goal of ultimately realizing self-powered electronic systems. Among the various available ambient energy sources which can be converted into electricity, wind energy is a most promising and ubiquitous source in both outdoor and indoor environments. Significant research outcomes have been produced on small scale wind energy harvesting in the literature, mostly based on piezoelectric conversion. Especially, modeling methods of wind energy harvesting techniques plays a greatly important role in accurate performance evaluations as well as efficient parameter optimizations. The purpose of this paper is to present a guideline on the modeling methods of small-scale wind energy harvesters. The mechanisms and characteristics of different types of aeroelastic instabilities are presented first, including the vortex-induced vibration, galloping, flutter, wake galloping and turbulence-induced vibration. Next, the modeling methods are reviewed in detail, which are classified into three categories: the mathematical modeling method, the equivalent circuit modeling method, and the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. This paper aims to provide useful guidance to researchers from various disciplines when they want to develop and model a multi-way coupled wind piezoelectric energy harvester.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.43-57
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• 2012

In a modern aircraft, there are many variations in its mass, stiffness, and aerodynamic characteristics. Recently, an analytical approach was proposed, and this approach uses the idea of uncertainty to find out the most critical flight flutter boundary due to the variations in such aerodynamic characteristics. An analytical method that has been suggested to predict robust stability is the mu method. We previously analyzed the robust flutter boundary by using the mu method, and in that study, aerodynamic variations in the Mach number, atmospheric density, and flight speed were taken into consideration. The authors' previous attempt and the results are currently quoted as varying Mach number mu analysis. In the author's previous method, when the initial flight conditions were located far from the nominal flutter boundary, conservative predictions were obtained. However, relationships among those aerodynamic parameters were not applied. Thus, the varying Mach number mu analysis results required validation. Using an optimization approach, the varying Mach number mu analysis was found out to be capable of capturing a reasonable robust flutter boundary, i.e., with a low percentage difference from boundaries that were obtained by optimization. Regarding the optimization approach, a discrete nominal flutter boundary is to be obtained in advance, and based on that boundary, an interpolated function was established. Thus, the optimization approach required more computational effort for a larger number of uncertainty variables. And, this produced results similar to those from the mu method which had lower computational complexity. Thus, during the estimation of robust aeroelastic stability, the mu method was regarded as more efficient than the optimization method was. The mu method predicts reasonable results when an initial condition is located near the nominal flutter boundary, but it does not consider the relationships that are among the aerodynamic parameters, and its predictions are not very accurate when the initial condition is located far from the nominal flutter boundary. In order to provide predictions that are more accurate, the relationships among the uncertainties should also be included in the mu method.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.30-45
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• 2013

The present work focuses on the unsteady aerodynamics and aeroelastic properties of a small-medium sized wind-turbine blade operating under ideal conditions. A tapered/twisted blade representative of commercial blades used in an experiment setup at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is considered. The aerodynamic loads are computed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques. For this purpose, FLUENT$^{(R)}$, a commercial finite-volume code that solves the Navier-Stokes and the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, is used. Turbulence effects in the 2D simulations are modeled using the Wilcox k-w model for validation of the CFD approach. For the 3D aerodynamic simulations, in a first approximation, and considering that the intent is to present a methodology and workflow philosophy more than highly accurate turbulent simulations, the unsteady laminar Navier-Stokes equations were used to determine the unsteady loads acting on the blades. Five different blade pitch angles were considered and their aerodynamic performance compared. The structural dynamics of the flexible wind-turbine blade undergoing significant elastic displacements has been described by a nonlinear flap-lag-torsion slender-beam differential model. The aerodynamic quasi-steady forcing terms needed for the aeroelastic governing equations have been predicted through a strip-theory based on a simple 2D model, and the pertinent aerodynamic coefficients and the distribution over the blade span of the induced velocity derived using CFD. The resulting unsteady hub loads are achieved by a first space integration of the aeroelastic equations by applying the Galerkin's approach and by a time integration using a harmonic balance scheme. Comparison among two- and three- dimensional computations for the unsteady aerodynamic load, the flap, lag and torsional deflections, forces and moments are presented in the paper. Results, discussions and pertinent conclusions are outlined.