A curved body with tail design for piezoelectric energy harvesting

Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting has the potential for higher conversion efficiency, and higher output voltage, for MEMS systems and portable devices. Avoiding the reattachment of vortexes and increasing the pressure difference between the objects is key to effectively improve the vibration performance and output. In this paper, a curved plate with tail design is proposed, which has potential to have higher vibration frequency and larger amplitude exploiting the galloping phenomenon. The design has been compared with a curved plate design by simulation, and it shows better performance. Its average lift coefficient increases by 57.42% within a wind speed range of 1-10m/s compared to the curved plate design. The paper also studies the effect of tail length on the frequency and lift coefficient.