Micro Piezoelectric Windmill
Department
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Major
Mechanical Engineering
Research Advisor
Duan, Lian, 1983-
Advisor's Department
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Abstract
The research aims at developing a novel small-scale piezoelectric windmill that can efficiently harvest energy from natural wind flows by combining computer simulations, wind-tunnel experiments, and field tests. The windmill holds the potential for powering various wireless sensors, including but not limited to those widely used for monitoring structural health, border intrusion, weather conditions, food security. Existing small-scale piezoelectric windmill designs typically have complicated structural motion systems and low output electric power densities (power per PZT volume), and cannot be used for random wind flows coming from arbitrary direction. Our invention is designed to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks of existing windmills. It features simpler structures for the motion system and significantly higher power density compared with the state-of-the-art model in literature. It also has the advantage of being operational with fluid flows coming from arbitrary directions, ideal for harvesting energy from natural random flows.
Biography
Therese Galbraith is a Junior studying Mechanical Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology. She plans to co-op with Pella Corporation this summer and next semester working on developing Insynctive technology.
Research Category
Research Proposals
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Document Type
Poster
Award
Research proposal poster session, Second place
Location
Upper Atrium/Hall
Presentation Date
15 Apr 2015, 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Micro Piezoelectric Windmill
Upper Atrium/Hall
The research aims at developing a novel small-scale piezoelectric windmill that can efficiently harvest energy from natural wind flows by combining computer simulations, wind-tunnel experiments, and field tests. The windmill holds the potential for powering various wireless sensors, including but not limited to those widely used for monitoring structural health, border intrusion, weather conditions, food security. Existing small-scale piezoelectric windmill designs typically have complicated structural motion systems and low output electric power densities (power per PZT volume), and cannot be used for random wind flows coming from arbitrary direction. Our invention is designed to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks of existing windmills. It features simpler structures for the motion system and significantly higher power density compared with the state-of-the-art model in literature. It also has the advantage of being operational with fluid flows coming from arbitrary directions, ideal for harvesting energy from natural random flows.
Comments
Joint Project with Yahya Abu Hijleh