Design and development of an energy harvester for testing at the IFLUIDS water closed loop pumping system

Abstract

Due to the environmental problems we face nowadays, it is very important to focus efforts on the development of sustainable energy generation sources. It is also essential that, in addition to being sustainable, these sources are economically viable and capable of meeting the existing demand. This Bachelor’s Thesis is composed of two parts. The first part consists of improving and fine-tuning, based on a preliminary design, the test section of the cavitation tunnel located at the Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering. The main objective of this redesign is to enhance research by adding greater flexibility, allowing different cases to be studied without the need to make major modifications to the test section for each experiment. To conclude this part, modal and acoustic simulations will be carried out in order to identify the vibrational modes of the structure. The motivation for performing these simulations is primarily to determine the natural frequencies at which resonance may occur, so as to avoid high vibration levels during experiments that could damage the facility or adversely affect the quality of the tests. In the second part of the project, the components of an energy recovery device developed in a research project have been redefined so that it can be installed and tested within the new test section. In addition, the necessary supports have been designed to ensure that the structure and the energy recovery device are properly coupled and that the expected dynamic response of the system is not significantly altered. To validate this final aspect, modal simulations have been carried out, following a procedure similar to that used previously, but in this case analyzing both the energy recovery device on its own and when mounted in the test section.