Renewable energy harvesting by vortex-induced motions: Review and benchmarking of technologies

Vortex-induced motions are generally known as destructive phenomena for engineering structures. Nevertheless, they have a positive effect which is their great potential to extract renewable energy from the fluid flow. The phenomenology of vortex-induced motions has been studied and several energy harvesting technologies based on these motions have been reported, separately through literature. However, a comprehensive study that bonds together the phenomenology and the energy extraction technologies does not exist yet. Now that this area has become well established, classification of the relevant phenomena and technologies has become necessary as well. The present paper has two main objectives; The first objective is to classify the whole vortex-induced motion phenomena into several groups which include Flutter, Transverse and Torsional Galloping, Buffeting, Vortex-Induced Vibration (VIV), and Fluttering-Autorotation. The second objective is to review the literature, with the aim of classifying different technologies of renewable energy harvesting based on vortex-induced motion. Also, the performance characteristics and economical costs of these technologies are benchmarked.