Yasser Amini

Piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) from ambient energy sources, particularly vibrations, has attracted considerable interest throughout the last decade. Since fluid flow has a high energy density, it is one of the best candidates for PEH. Indeed, a piezoelectric energy harvesting process from the fluid flow takes the form of natural three-way coupling of the turbulent fluid flow, the electromechanical effect of the piezoelectric material and the electrical circuit. There are some experimental and numerical studies about piezoelectric energy harvesting from fluid flow in literatures. Nevertheless, accurate modeling for predicting characteristics of this threeway coupling has not yet been developed. In the present study, accurate modeling for this triple coupling is developed and validated by experimental results. A new code based on this modeling in an openFOAM platform is developed.