Modeling and simulation of thin-walled piezoelectric energy harvesters immersed in flow using monolithic fluid–structure interaction

A monolithic numerical scheme for fluid–structure interaction with special interest in thin-walled piezoelectric energy harvesters driven by fluid is proposed. Employing a beam/shell model the structure this particular application creates FSI problem which an (n?1)-dimensional embedded n-dimensional flow. This choice induces strongly discontinuous pressure field along moving fluid–solid interface. We overcome challenge within continuous finite element framework splitting-fluid-domain approach. The governing equations of multiphysics are solved simultaneous fashion order to reliably capture main dynamic characteristics strongly-coupled system that involves large deformation composite structure, integrated electric circuit and incompressible viscous fluid. solution based on weighted residuals method, boundary-fitted method used discretization space, generalized-? time. proposed evaluated against reference data two popular benchmark problems. Two additional examples flow-driven demonstrate feasibility predict controlled cyclic response limit-cycle oscillations thus power output typical operational states class harvesting devices.