System Identification of Hydrokinetic Energy Harvester Using Flow Induced Oscillations

Using data series obtained by experiments at the Marine Renewable Energy Laboratory of the University of Michigan, a Data-Driven Model is constructed for further investigation of the Process Dynamics and Control System Design and Configuration. This will enable advances in hydrokinetic energy harvesting using Vortex Induced Vibrations (VIV) and galloping, or more generally, Flow Induced Oscillations (FIO). Typically in such energy converters, one or more multiple bluff bodies, such as cylinders are suspended on springs in a water flow (currents, tides, rivers). In commonly encountered flows, oscillations are induced to the bluff rigid bodies due to vortex shedding in their wake, or due to lift instabilities in galloping, or both. These phenomena are dependent on stiffness, damping, mass ratio and the resulting vortex shedding frequency. The experiments in the cases investigated generated position signal recordings for one or two cylinders used as bluff bodies in FIO in a cross-flow. The position signals are used to set up a dynamic model. The model equation helps in gaining insight into the dynamics and underlying physics of the modeled FIO and can be used for Control System Tuning and Verification.