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Numerical Simulation of FSI Model for Energy Harvesting from Ocean Waves
and Beams with Piezoelectric Material

Conference Paper · December 2018

DOI: 10.1109/IRSEC.2018.8702943

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 Numerical
Simulation
of
FSI
Model
for
Energy

Harvesting
Grom
Ocean
Waves
and
Beams
Xith

Piezoelectric
Material
Yassin
Belkourchia∗
Hamzah
Bakhti Lahcen
Azrar
M2CS,
Research
Center
STIS
M2CS,
Research
Center
STIS
M2CS,
Research
Center
STIS

Dept.
of
App.
Math.
&
Info.
Dept.
of
App.
Math.
&
Info.
Dept.
of
App.
Math.
&
Info.

ENSET,
Mohammed
V
University
ENSET,
Mohammed
V
University
ENSET,
Mohammed
V
University

Rabat,
Morocco Rabat,
Morocco Rabat,
Morocco
yassin.belkourchia@um5s.net.ma hamzah.bakhti@um5s.net.ma Faculty
of
Engineering
King
Abdulaziz
University

Jeddah,
Saudi
Arabia
l.azrar@um5s.net.ma

Abstract—In recent years, energy generation and harvesting
took the attention of many researchers, especially the piezo-
electric materials for their unique characteristics. One of the
promising techniques for energy harvesting is the ocean wave
energy harvester resulting from the pressure coming from the
ocean movement waves on a vertical cantilever with piezoelectric
patches, this results in a fluid-structure interaction. A mathe-
matical model is presented based on the Stokes equation for
the flow and the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory for the structure
motion. The finite element method (FEM) coupled with the
quadratic differential method (QDM) are used to numerically
solve the resulting partial differential equations with an implicit
time scheme. The obtained numerical simulations are validated
and discussed. Results show clear effect of the water pressure
on the cantilever, as well as the pulsatile behavior of the water
motion. This paper gives an adaptive numerical scheme to solve
the FSI model for energy harvesting of ocean wave motion and the
study gives more insights on the understanding of such problems.
Index Terms—Energy harvesting; Piezoelectric patch; Fi-
nite Element Method; Quadratic Differential Method; Fluid-
Structure Interaction;
I. I NTRODUCTION
Energy crisis and environmental pollution are highlighted
to be one of the major global problems in the 21st century.
Therefore, this challenge prompted people to find means new
technologies of exploiting new energy. Due to its unique char-
acteristics these piezoelectric materials have received much
attention to exploit the new energy generation and harvesting.
Williams and Yates [1] in their early work of piezoelectric,
electromagnetic, and electrostatic transductions interpreted a
possible vibration-to-electric energy conversion. These three
transduction mechanisms have been studied by researchers
extensively in the last decade [2]. Theoretical and experimental
results were provided on the modeling and applications of
piezoelectric [3], electromagnetic [4], and electrostatic [5] en-
ergy harvesters. Among these three alternatives for vibration-
to-electric energy conversion, piezoelectric transduction has
received the most attention owing to the convenient electro-
mechanical convertible characteristics of piezoelectric materi-
als. Ajitsaria et al. [6] provided a model of a bimorph piezo-
electric cantilever beam based on both the Euler–Bernoulli
beam and the Timoshenko beam models for the calculation of
the voltage and power generation.
On the other hand, various research works were concen-
trated on optimizing designs of piezoelectric coupled struc-
tures [7]–[10] for better effective energy harvesting. These de-
vices aimed to get at practical portable microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS), Cook-Chennault et al. [11], via collecting
energy of human actives, such as mens working [12] and the
bikes motions [13].
Recently, some research studies were conducted on piezo-
electric energy harvesting from ambient vibrations [14]–[19]
by natural energies such as solar energy, wind energy, and
ocean-wave energy. Vatansever et al. [20] evaluated energy
harvesting from ceramic based piezoelectric fiber composite
structures subjected to different wind loadings. Li et al. [21]
introduced a bio-inspired piezo-leaf architecture, which was
in dangling cross-flow stalk that converted wind energy into
electrical energy, by wind-induced flutter motion.
In this work, a mathematical model is presented to study the
fluid-structure interaction (FSI) of the water flow [24] and the
structure displacement using the Stokes equation for the flow
and the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory for the structure motion.
A mathematical procedure based on the coupling the FEM and
the QDM to solve the resulting partial differential equations
for the dynamic behavior and fluid-structure interaction, an
implicit time scheme is elaborated. The obtained numerical
simulations are validated and discussed.
II. FSI
MODEL
FOR
ENERGY
HARVESTING
FROM
OCEAN
WAVES
The study of energy harvester of ocean wave using piezo-
electric patches attached to a vertical cantilever substance, as

 


illustrated in Fig. 1, is elaborated by developing a mathemati-
cal model that describe the fluid-structure interaction between
the water motion and a fixed rectangular column subjected to
a transverse pressure from water movement. The piezoelectric
patches are attached one by one to the vertical cantilever of
length H. We note h the thickness of the cantilever.
y
L Free surface
h 0.8
H v
u 0
x
o Fig. 2: Example of the flow domain generated mesh.
d
Inlet Outlet
Fig. 1: Sketch of the two-dimensional piezoelectric energy
harvester.
The flow is modeled by the non-dimensional Stokes equa-
tion in a two-dimensional flow domain, the velocity-pressure
fields are obtained by solving the equations with a pulsatile
inlet flow condition to describe wave motion. Thus the system
of equation for the flow model is given in a vector form by
∇·u=0 (1)
∂u 1 −B1 t
= −∇p + Δu (2)
∂t Re
where Re, the water Reynolds number, is considered to be
low, u = (u, v)t is the velocity vector and p the pressure.
The transverse pressure applied to the cantilever coming
from the wave motion is given by the following function
pl − p r
fv = (3)
h applying the quadrature rule, we obtain the following discrete
where pl and pr are, respectively, the pressure applied to the
left and the right of the vertical cantilever that are extracted
from the flow equations.
The Euler-Bernoulli beam theory is used in modeling the
cantilever motion due to the transverse wave pressure. Thus,
the governing equation of the structure is expressed as [18]:
∂ 4 w(z, t)  ∂ 2 w(z, t) ∂ 2 w(z, t)
EI + m (z)g + (ρA) = fv (4)
∂z 4 ∂z 2 ∂t2
where EI, A and ρ are, respectively, the flexural rigidity,
cross section area and the material density of the cantilever
substrate. m (z) is the mass per unit length of the cantilever at
the position z. It is assumed that the piezoelectric patches are
attached tightly on the surface of the cantilever. Additionally,
it is noted that the size of the proof mass is very small with
respect to the length of the cantilever and can be neglected.
III. N UMERICAL S IMULATION
Numerical methodological approaches and a numerical code
have been elaborated to solve the resulting fully coupled
fluid and structure model. The elaborated numerical techniques
consists of solving the flow equations using the mixed finite
element method coupled with the quadratic differential method
for the structure equation.
A. Flow solver
The Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to solve the
flow equations in a two-dimensional complex geometry of the
domain. Fig. 2 represents an example of the geometry mesh
used in this paper. The implicite time scheme is used to trait
the time derivative of the resulting discrete flow system of
equations.
1
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Finite Element Discretization: To obtain the weak formu-
lation of the flow equation, we multiply by test functions
of the velocities, integrating by parts over the domain and
using the boundary conditions we obtain the weak formulation
of the classic problem. Using the finite element method, the
system is descretized following the P2-P1 triangular elements
of the velocity and pressure, respectively. The following linear
algebraic equation is then resulted
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ n+1 ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
M + Redt
A 0 −dtB1 U MUn
⎣ 0 M + Redt
A −dtB2 ⎦ ⎣ V n+1 ⎦ = ⎣ M V n ⎦
−B2 t
0 P n+1 0
(5)
where U, V and P contain, respectively, the nodal points of
the velocity components and the pressure values.
B. Structure solver
Consider n grid points with coordinates z1 , z2 , ..., zn in the
z-direction. Satisfying Eq. 4 at any grid point z = zi and
system of equations [22], [23]
[K]{W (t)} + [M ]{Ẅ (t)} = {F (t)} (6)
where [M ] and [K] are the mass and stiffness matrices
of the beam, {W (t)} and {Ẅ (t)}are the displacement and
acceleration vectors, respectively. {F (t)} is wave pressure
applied in to the cantilever extracted from the flow equations.
[K], [M ], {W (t)} and {Ẅ (t)} are given by
[K] = EI[e](4) + m (z)g[e](2) , [M ] = ρA[I],
{W (t)} = [w(z1 , t) w(z2 , t) ... w(zn t)]T
{Ẅ (t)} = [ẅ(z1 , t) ẅ(z2 t) ... ẅ(zn , t)]T
{F (t)} = [fv (z1 , t) fv (z2 , t) ... fv (zn t)]T
where [I] is an identity matrix of order n × n. [e](4)
and [e](2) is the QDM weighting coefficient matrices of the
fourth and second order derivative, respectifly. After applying
the boundary conditions of the beam, Eq. 6 can be solved
for the unknown grid-point values using various step-by-step
time integration schemes. The details of implementation of
the beam boundary conditions can be found in [22]. In this
study, the time derivative is descritized using the implicit finite
difference scheme is employed to solve system 6.
C. Fluid-structure coupling
0.9
The algorithm followed to obtain the solution for the con- Numerical Solution
Exact Solution

sidered coupled fluid-structure model is presented as follows 0.85

Fluid-Structure Interaction Algorithm

u-velocity at x=y=0.5
0.8

Define structural and fluid models parameters

Generate initial mesh 0.75

while t ≤ tmax do
Calculate fluid solution 0.7

Calculate structure solution

Upgrade fluid grids 0.65

t = t + dt
end while 0.6

0 1 2 3 4 5
Output FSI solution time

1
Numerical Solution

IV. R ESULTS & D ISCUSSION 0.9

Exact Solution

0.8
We present multiple computational experiments and tests
in order to validate the proposed flow and structure solvers. 0.7

Moreover, the numerical scheme is used to examine the effect 0.6

of water pressure on the cantilever displacements and the

y-axis
0.5
obtained results are presented and discussed.
0.4

A. Validation of the flow solver 0.3

0.2
We consider a Poiseuille fluid flow problem in order to
validate the flow solver. The domain geometry is considered 0.1

to be rectangular and the pulsatile inlet function is given as 0

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
follow u-velocity at x=0.5 and t = 0.2

 
y y Fig. 3: Exact and Numerical solution for Poiseuille Flow
uin = 4 1− (7)
R/2 R/2
Numerical results were obtained using a triangular mesh, the resulting dynamic equations. The load distributed over the
containing 1766 velocity nodes and 472 pressure nodes. The entire surface of the plate is given by the expression.
time step used in this numerical tests is Δt = 0.1, which is  2
2 z 3
sufficient as the implicit time scheme is used to assure the f (z, t) = sin(ωt ) −z+
2 2
stability of the numerical results.  2 2 
z z z 1
Fig. 3 represents a comparison between the exact and −4ω 2 t2 − + (8)
the obtained numerical solution for the Poiseuille flow in a 2 12 3 2
 2 2 
rectangular domain in order to validate the flow solver. It z z z 1
+ 2ω cos(ωt2 ) − +
is observed that the numerical solution obtained by the flow 2 12 3 2
solver is matching the exact solution for two cases, fixed space The governing differential equation for the bending of the
point and variation i time and vice versa for a fixed time and beam can be written as following
variation in space.
∂ 4 w(z, t)  ∂ 2 w(z, t) ∂ 2 w(z, t)
EI 4
+ m (z)g 2
+ ρA = f (z, t)
B. Validation of the structure solver ∂z ∂z ∂t2
(9)
To validate the applicability of the proposed methodology. This problem has an analytic solution that can be written
Let us consider the bending problem of a clamped-free beam as following
with following non-dimensional structural parameters, length  
z2 z2 z 1
L equal to 10, thickness h = 0.1, modulus of elasticity E = w(z, t) = sin(ωt2 ) − + (10)
1, mass density ρ = 1, subjected to a load distributed over 2 12 3 2
the entire surface. The dynamic response at the beam center, The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed methodology
wcd , is evaluated and compared with the analytically solution. are demonstrated by comparing the numerically obtained re-
The implicit scheme for time discretisation is used to solve sults with the analytic ones. The discretization procedure using
the QDM is very similar to that described below. Fig. 4 shows
the comparison between the QDM solution and analytic one
for different variation of time and space values.
0.04
the structural model. The results were obtained using a non
uniform triangular mesh, with 1782 velocity nodes and 477
pressure nodes. The time step used in this numerical tests is
Δt = 0.1. During the computation process, we did not remark
any instability problem, neither in the obtained solutions.

0.035 Numerical Solution

Exact Solution
0.03

0.025
w at z=0.5

0.02

0.015

0.01

0.005

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
time

0.03

Numerical Solution
0.025 Exact Solution

0.02
w at t=0.49

0.015

0.01

0.005

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
z

Fig. 4: Exact and Numerical solution for the cantilever model

Fig. 5: Resulting FSI pressure contour over time.

C. Fluid-structure interaction
As the main application, simulations of the energy harvest-
ing from ocean waves by a piezoelectric patches are obtained.
A two dimensional geometry defined with a moving cantilever
that is defined as a rectangular column, shown in Fig. 1.
Based on the FSI algorithm, several numerical tests have been
made to simulate the fluid-structure interaction with pulsatile
inlet velocity and the Euler-Bernoulli beam. This is used in
modelling of the cantilever motion due to flow pressure. The
pulsatile inlet function is defined as follow
 
y y
uin (y, t) = 4u0 (t) 1− (11)
R/2 R/2
where the function u0 (t) is the inlet velocity amplitude
defined by
Fig. 5 shows the pressure contours evolution over a pulsa-
tion cycle for the given values of the geometrical, structural
and fluid parameters values. It is clearly demonstrated that the
flow pressure applied on the structure results in the deflection
of the beam. The deflection behavior of the structure is
periodic due to the pulsation of the inlet velocity. While for
the pressure contours, it is clearly shown that a higher pressure
occurs before the cantilever and decreases away from it. The
pressure evolution near the vertical beam plays a rule on the
displacement variation of the cantilever. This fluid-structure
interaction will be used to enhance the beam deformation when
using a beam with piezoelectric layers or patches, created
electric effect will be increased due to the flow induced
deformations.
V. C ONCLUSION

u0 (t) = 1 + 0.2sin(πt) (12) A methodological approach is elaborated to investigate

the fluid-structure interaction modeling the energy harvesting
The geometrical and mesh parameters used in the con- from ocean waves by piezoelectric patches using the Stokes
sidered FSI problem are the same used in the validation of equation for the fluid and Euler-Bernoulli beam theory for
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