City Research Online

Abstract

This study numerically investigates hydrokinetic energy harvesting using flat plates placed in the wake of a circular cylinder through flow-induced vibrations. Unlike most existing studies on flexible-plate harvesters, the present work focuses on rigid downstream plates undergoing wake-induced vibration. Two configurations are examined: a fixed upstream cylinder followed by elastically mounted rigid plates, and a simultaneously vibrating system in which both the cylinder and the plates vibrate in the cross-flow direction. Two-dimensional URANS simulations are performed at Reynolds numbers representative of marine currents. The effects of streamwise and vertical spacing, and reduced velocity on vibration amplitude, wake structure, harvested power, and efficiency are systematically analyzed. For fixed-cylinder, a single rigid plate located at a small spacing achieves the highest efficiency of approximately 10%, as a coherent vortices directly excite large-amplitude vibrations. Although parallel plates generate higher total harvested power, their efficiency is reduced due to increased swept area and available flow power, indicating that small spacing is more beneficial than increasing the number of harvesters. When the cylinder is allowed to vibrate simultaneously, a single downstream plate at a non-dimensional small spacing of 0.5 produces a strongly coupled vortex- and wake-induced vibration response. In this regime, the plate amplifies the cylinder vibration, by extending upper response branch and changing near-wake flow, leading to more than a three times increase in total power and up to 17% higher maximum efficiency. These results highlight the potential of compact rigid cylinder-plate configurations for efficient energy harvesting.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2026, Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publisher Keywords:	Wake-induced vibration, Vortex-induced vibration, Energy harvesting, Flat plate
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
Departments:	School of Science & Technology School of Science & Technology > Department of Engineering
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads