Aeroelastic energy harvesting from statistically representative gust encounters

Saporito, Marco and Da Ronch, Andrea (2020) Aeroelastic energy harvesting from statistically representative gust encounters. Journal of Fluids and Structures, 94, 1-24, [102869]. (doi:10.1016/j.jfluidstructs.2020.102869).

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Abstract

The mission of high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles is limited by energetic considerations. This paper explores, for the first time in the open literature, statistic estimates of the potential energy that may be harvested from gust encounters along a representative flight mission. The work is built around three objectives: (1) investigate the influence that the configuration of the piezoelectric inserts, at equivalent total mass, has on the energy harvesting performance; (2) assess the energetic balance between the harvested energy from gust encounters and the energy needed by an actuation system to achieve a certain gust load alleviation; and (3) discuss the potential weight saving of batteries when employing piezoelectric inserts. The test case is for the flexible wing of a high aspect ratio unmanned air vehicle flying at low speeds.

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