Optimizing tensile membrane architecture for energy harvesting

Abstract

This paper identifies the correlation between the stiffness of a tensile membrane and wind-induced vibration. Here, a means by which to optimize the tensile membrane architecture and a harvester for the collection of energy from wind-induced vibration is proposed. Because its material property, the tensile membrane architecture is suitable for harvesting energy. While high stiffness is desired to ensure the stability of the tensile membrane architecture, the stiffness is negatively correlated with the energy collection. Thus, optimization considering the stiffness and the amount of harvestable energy in tensile membrane structures is conducted, broken down into the following tasks: 1) investigate the energy generator on the tensile membrane to combine a membrane type of architecture and wind energy harvesting; 2) set-up the computational environment with which to analyze the energy efficiency of the tensile membrane architecture; 3) visualize the resulting datasets to determine the relationship between the stiffness and the energy efficiency; and 4) define optimized tensile membrane architectures.