Wind Energy Harvesting from Artificial

Grass by Using Micro Fibre Composite

Rakesh Kumar Haldkar and Ivan A. Parinov

Abstract Energy harvesting technologies from ambient sources are the most inter-
esting area of researchers nowadays because everyone is looking for an alternative to
these conventional power sources. Ambient energy is extracted from thermal energy,
solar energy, electromagnetic waves and vibration energy sources. The vibration
energy is found a great presence nowadays. Micro Fiber Composite (MFC) is used
to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and vice versa. The various applica-
tions of MFC are available in the field of sensors and actuators. In this work, artificial
grass is designed to harvest wind energy. The different structures of cantilever beams
are designed. MFC is attached to the cantilever beam and converts the wind energy
to electrical energy. The Finite Element analysis has been performed using ANSYS
Multiphysics to analyze the electrical and mechanical properties. One artificial grass
with proof mass gives the 0.0123 W.

Keywords Energy harvesting · Wind energy · Micro Fiber Composite (MFC) ·

Cantilever beam

1 Introduction

Energy harvesting is a very interesting area of research in recent times. The depletion
in conventional non-renewable energy sources has made researchers look into new
and alternate sources of energy. It was the early 1990s, and while the integration of
electronics into everyday devices was underway, the revolutions that would become
wireless communication and global networking were only beginning [1–4]. Lots
of research are conducted in past years to improve the efficiency of piezoelectric
energy harvesters. The researchers have tried several materials, different structures
and various analyses are carried out to provide the best alternative solutions [5–
11]. The most common structure of this technique is the cantilever beam having
piezoelectric material is attached to it however, researchers have also developed

R. K. Haldkar (B) · I. A. Parinov

Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 511
I. A. Parinov et al. (eds.), Physics and Mechanics of New Materials
and Their Applications, Springer Proceedings in Materials 10,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76481-4_42
512 R. K. Haldkar and I. A. Parinov

various new designs for improving the efficiency of the cantilever [12–17]. In this
paper, artificial grass is designed to convert wind energy to electrical energy. For
the artificial grass, a cantilever structure is considered. The different designs of the
cantilever beam are proposed with the proof mass. The cantilever beam consists
of active materials and passive materials. MFC is the active and duralumin passive
material, respectively. The artificial grasses are implant in 1 feet2 area.

2 Energy Harvester Designs

The concept of power generation by artificial grass is shown in Fig. 1. Each energy
harvester consists of passive cantilever beams, active MFC patches, and electronic
circuits. The wind strikes with these cantilevers, the cantilevers deform, and wind
energy is converted into electrical energy. The length of the passive cantilever is equal
to 120 mm, width is 20 mm and thickness is 0.5 mm. The dimensions of the active
MFC have a length of 28 mm, a width of 14 mm and thickness 0.3 mm. The proof
mass length of 20 mm, width of 40 mm, and thickness of 0.5 mm are considered as
shown in Fig. 2. The passive and active material properties are listed in Table 1.

Fig. 1 Energy harvester

Fig. 2 MFC cantilever bimorph

Wind Energy Harvesting from Artificial Grass … 513

Table 1 Materials properties

No Energy harvester elements Material ρ, kg/m3 E, Pa ν
1 Passive material Duralumin 2800 0.33 × 1011 0.33
2 Active material MFC [18] 0.31
3 Proof mass Metal (Steel) 7700 2.1 × 1011 0.33
4 Active electrical load Resistor () 100,000 – –

3 FEA Modelling of the Cantilever Beam

CAD model of the cantilever with proof mass is shown in Fig. 3. MFC is glued to
the fixed end and created the bimorph beam as shown in Fig. 3a. Figure 3b shows
the second CAD model, the proof mass is attached at the free end. MFC material has
meshed with SOLID226 and SOLID186 used for duralumin meshing. FEA analysis
is carried out in the three models; (i) bimorph cantilever beam, (ii) bimorph cantilever
beam with a steel proof mass and (iii) bimorph cantilever beam with a duralumin
proof mass. Mesh independency test is carried out for all the above cases.
Modal analysis is carried out with above the three cases and natural frequency is
summarized in Table 2 and mode shape is shown in Fig. 4.
Nan Wu et al. developed the periodical pressure variation on the downstream side
of the cantilever beam. The equivalent dynamic force P(t), scattered per unit length
on the cantilever beam from the crosswind with the vortex shedding, is defined as
[19]

(a) (b)

Fig. 3 Cantilever beam with MFC patches: a without proof mass, b with proof mass

Table 2 Natural frequency at different design

No Design Natural frequency (Hz) Deflection (m)
1 MFC bimorph cantilever beam without 30.75 1 × 10–3
proof mass
2 MFC bimorph cantilever beam with the 19.19 4 × 10–3
steel proof mass
3 MFC bimorph cantilever beam with the 29.88 1.5 × 10–3
duralumin proof mass
514 R. K. Haldkar and I. A. Parinov

Fig. 4 First mode shape of

the bimorph cantilever beam.
a without proof mass, b with
steel proof mass, c with
duralumin proof mass

(a) without proof mass

(b) with steel proof mass

(c) with duralumin proof mass

ρ A × v2
P(t) = × b × μL × sin ωs t (1)
2
2π × v × st
ωs = (2)
b

where v is the wind velocity, ρ A is the air mass density; μL is the crosswind force
coefficient, set as 0.6 for a rectangular beam cross-section; ωs is the vortex shedding
frequency; b is the width of the MFC patches and cantilever.
Wind Energy Harvesting from Artificial Grass … 515

4 Results and Discussion

The wind velocity in normal conditions, varies from 1 to 8 m/s. The wind is strike
to cantilever with above velocity and get deflected. The pressure exerted on the
cantilever beam due to the above velocity range varies from 0.1 to 5 Pa. This pressure
range is applied to the cantilever energy harvester models to find out the deflection
and voltage. The pressure 1 Pa is applied to the above three energy harvesters and
harmonic analysis is carried out. The maximum deflection is equal to 1.5 × 10–3 m
and obtained at the natural frequency of 29.88 Hz in the case of duralumin proof
mass shown in Fig. 5b and results are summarized in Table 2.
According to the wind flow, the pressure is employed on the cantilever beam.
When the wind velocity increases, the exerted pressure also increases on the cantilever
beam. The cantilever beam gets deflection when the pressure exerted on it and the
results are shown in Fig. 6. When applied pressure increases, the cantilever beam
deflects more. As compare with two designs with proof mass, the duralumin proof
mass gives more deflection compared to steel proof mass. Figure 7 shows the rela-
tionship between the deflection and the output voltage of the cantilever with proof

(a)

(b) (c)

Fig. 5 Frequency versus deflection: a without proof mass, b with steel proof mass, c with duralumin
proof mass
516 R. K. Haldkar and I. A. Parinov

Fig. 6 Deflection versus Metal Mass

applied load 10-2
Duralumin Mass

Deflection (m)
10-3

10-4

10-5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Applied Load (Pa)

Fig. 7 Deflection versus

Duralumin Mass
voltage
150 Metal Mass
Output Voltage (Volt)

120

90

60

30

0.000 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008

Deflection (m)

mass. The applied pressure on the cantilever varies from 0.1 to 5 Pa and found out
the output voltage. Duralumin proof mass gives the higher voltage as compared to
the steel proof mass. In further analysis, cantilever energy harvester with duralumin
proof mass is considered for artificial grass.
The wind pressure of 1 Pa, applied to the one cantilever of artificial grass, is found
the 55.56 V as shown in Fig. 8 and an output current is 2.20 × 10–4 A. The power,
generated by one cantilever of artificial grass, is about 0.0123 W. The number of
1050 (7 × 150) grass cantilevers are mounted on the area of 1 Feet2 . Then the total
power generated is about 12.915 W.
Wind Energy Harvesting from Artificial Grass … 517

Fig. 8 Output voltage at the

wind pressure of 1 Pa

5 Conclusion

The artificial grass is composed of a cantilever beam with MFC materials, a proof
mass, and an electrical resistance. MFC cantilever beams are designed based on
the finite element method. The finite element analysis software ANSYS is used to
calculate the relationship between the deflection and output voltage of the MFC.
Results show that the natural frequencies of the cantilever energy harvester with the
duralumin proof mass is 29.88 Hz. The peak voltage of 44.99 V takes place at 1 Pa
wind pressure. The one artificial grass harvest energy of about 0.0123 W and total
output power is 12.95 W. This power can be utilized for running the MEMS devices.

Acknowledgements Research was financially supported by Southern Federal University, grant

No. VnGr-07/2020-04-IM (Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation).

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