Prediction of the flutter envelope and parametric analysis of a flutter-based aeroelastic piezoelectric energy harvester

This is a comprehensive study on a 2-degree-of-freedom flutter-based aeroelastic piezoelectric energy harvester supported with cubic and quintic nonlinear springs under unsteady airflow. The nonlinear system is simplified by dimension reduction analysis for a high-dimensional multistable system, and the flutter envelope is predicted and the parameters studied to analyze the effect on linear critical flutter velocity and output power. Then, the probability density function is obtained by stochastic averaging, and the influences of airflow disturbance intensity and nonlinear parameters on the most probable response and energy harvesting efficiency are analyzed. Appropriate disturbance intensity reduces flutter speed while increasing amplitude in the plunge direction and output voltage. However, excessive disturbance diminishes energy collection efficiency and may cause system failure.