The Effect of Attached Spring on the Efficiency of a Vortex-Induced Wind Energy Harvester

The research focused on the effect of the attached spring on the efficiency of vortex-induced wind energy harvester to utilize in low wind speed areas and generate electricity. Four configurations were fabricated for testing, with variations on their spring attachment’s position. Based on the experiment results, the configuration with two springs on both sides of the cantilever beam was the optimal design out of all configurations. It recorded the highest mean voltage value of 1.4892 V, despite having the second-lowest attained wind speed mean of 2.23 m/s during its testing. The one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test showed a significant difference in at least three variations of wind energy harvester (WEH), having a p-value of 5.640E-08, which is lower than the assigned α-value of 0.05. The follow-up post hoc t-tests revealed that the WEH with two springs on both sides of the cantilever beam brought a significant difference out of all paired WEH. The study concluded that the design with spring attachment on both sides improves the efficiency of WEH compared to the configuration without spring as it displayed a 39.45% difference in their voltage output. The most optimal WEH design also shows improved output compared to precedent studies.