IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v18y2025i5p1277-d1605948.html

Parametric Study of a Fully Passive Oscillating Foil on a Swinging Arm

Author

Listed:
  • Dominic Cloutier

    (CFD Laboratory LMFN, Département de Génie Mécanique, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada)

  • Mathieu Olivier

    (CFD Laboratory LMFN, Département de Génie Mécanique, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada)

  • Guy Dumas

    (CFD Laboratory LMFN, Département de Génie Mécanique, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada)

Abstract

A NACA 0015 airfoil is connected to a swinging arm by springs and dampers and is let loose in an incompressible and viscous flow at a Reynolds number of 3.9 × 10 6 . The foil operates in a power-extracting regime and is free to pitch about a pivot that is itself swinging on a circular path; this contraption is called a fully passive oscillating-foil turbine on a swinging arm. This study explores the potential of four different foil configurations: with the swinging arm being either upstream or downstream of its pivot, and with or without the use of gears to control the equilibrium position of the foil with respect to the flow. The results show that the swinging arm concept offers similar performances, i.e., efficiency and power coefficient, as the railed turbine. Indeed, with arm lengths from 3 to 10 chords, efficiency values near 55 % and power coefficients reaching 1.57 are obtained. Both the railed and the swinging arm turbines can operate under either a stall-flutter or a coupled-flutter instability. However, it is found that the geared models are the only ones suited when the driving mechanism is the coupled-flutter instability while both geared and gearless configurations are effective under the stall-flutter instability.

Suggested Citation

  • Dominic Cloutier & Mathieu Olivier & Guy Dumas, 2025. "Parametric Study of a Fully Passive Oscillating Foil on a Swinging Arm," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-29, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:5:p:1277-:d:1605948
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/5/1277/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/5/1277/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sitorus, Patar Ebenezer & Ko, Jin Hwan, 2019. "Power extraction performance of three types of flapping hydrofoils at a Reynolds number of 1.7E6," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 106-118.
    2. Karbasian, H.R. & Esfahani, J.A. & Barati, E., 2016. "The power extraction by flapping foil hydrokinetic turbine in swing arm mode," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 130-142.
    3. Duarte, Leandro & Dellinger, Nicolas & Dellinger, Guilhem & Ghenaim, Abdellah & Terfous, Abdelali, 2021. "Experimental optimisation of the pitching structural parameters of a fully passive flapping foil turbine," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 1436-1444.
    4. Liu, Zhen & Qu, Hengliang & Shi, Hongda, 2020. "Energy-harvesting performance of a coupled-pitching hydrofoil under the semi-passive mode," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    5. Boudreau, Matthieu & Picard-Deland, Maxime & Dumas, Guy, 2020. "A parametric study and optimization of the fully-passive flapping-foil turbine at high Reynolds number," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 1958-1975.
    6. Jiang, W. & Zhang, D. & Xie, Y.H., 2016. "Numerical investigation into the effects of arm motion and camber on a self-induced oscillating hydrofoil," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(P1), pages 1010-1021.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dominic Cloutier & Mathieu Olivier & Guy Dumas, 2025. "A Parametric Study of a Fully Passive Oscillating Foil Turbine on a Swinging Arm in a Tandem Configuration," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-26, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dominic Cloutier & Mathieu Olivier & Guy Dumas, 2025. "A Parametric Study of a Fully Passive Oscillating Foil Turbine on a Swinging Arm in a Tandem Configuration," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-26, June.
    2. Liu, Zhen & Qu, Hengliang & Song, Xinyu & Chen, Zhengshou, 2025. "A state-of-the-art review on energy-harvesting performance of the flapping hydrofoil with influential parameters," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    3. Zhang, Yubing & Wang, Yong & Xie, Yudong & Sun, Guang & Han, Jiazhen, 2022. "Effects of flexibility on energy extraction performance of an oscillating hydrofoil under a semi-activated mode," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    4. Liu, Zhen & Qu, Hengliang & Shi, Hongda, 2020. "Energy-harvesting performance of a coupled-pitching hydrofoil under the semi-passive mode," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    5. Liu, Zhen & Qu, Hengliang, 2022. "Numerical study on a coupled-pitching flexible hydrofoil under the semi-passive mode," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 339-358.
    6. Wang, Zhangyuan & Xu, Wenhua & Han, Xuliang & Li, Ruipeng & Gong, Jiaye & Cui, Weicheng & Fan, Dixia, 2025. "A low cost strategy on energy harvesting of flapping foil with time-warping optimization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 337(C).
    7. Li, Weizhong & Wang, Wen-Quan & Yan, Yan, 2020. "The effects of outline of the symmetrical flapping hydrofoil on energy harvesting performance," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 624-638.
    8. Liu, Zhen & Qu, Hengliang & Zhang, Guoliang, 2020. "Experimental and numerical investigations of a coupled-pitching hydrofoil under the fully-activated mode," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 432-446.
    9. Benoît Genest & Guy Dumas, 2023. "Oscillating-Foil Turbine Performance Improvement by the Addition of Double Gurney Flaps and Kinematics Optimization," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-18, March.
    10. Zhu, Bing & Huang, Yun & Zhang, Yongming, 2018. "Energy harvesting properties of a flapping wing with an adaptive Gurney flap," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 119-128.
    11. Suleiman Saleh & Chang-Hyun Sohn, 2024. "Power Extraction Performance by a Hybrid Non-Sinusoidal Pitching Motion of an Oscillating Energy Harvester," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-17, May.
    12. Jiang, W. & Wang, Y.L. & Zhang, D. & Xie, Y.H., 2020. "Numerical investigation into the energy extraction characteristics of 3D self-induced oscillating foil," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 60-71.
    13. Liu, Zhen & Qu, Hengliang & Song, Xinyu & Chen, Zhengshou & Ni, Heqiang, 2023. "Energy-harvesting performance of tandem coupled-pitching hydrofoils under the semi-activated mode: An experimental study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    14. Villeneuve, Thierry & Boudreau, Matthieu & Dumas, Guy, 2021. "Assessing the performance and the wake recovery rate of flapping-foil turbines with end-plates and detached end-plates," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 206-222.
    15. Li, Yunzhu & Liu, Tianyuan & Wang, Yuqi & Xie, Yonghui, 2022. "Deep learning based real-time energy extraction system modeling for flapping foil," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    16. Suleiman Saleh & Chang-Hyun Sohn, 2024. "Numerically Investigating the Energy-Harvesting Performance of an Oscillating Flat Plate with Leading and Trailing Flaps," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-19, June.
    17. Zhang, Yubing & Wang, Qixian & Han, Jiazhen & Xie, Yudong, 2023. "Effects of unsteady stream on hydrodynamic behavior of flexible hydrofoil in semi-passive mode," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 451-465.
    18. Tian, Chenye & Liu, Xiaomin, 2024. "Numerical study on the energy extraction characteristics of a flapping foil with movable lateral flaps," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    19. Zhang, Yongkuang & Han, Xinyang & Hu, Yuxuan & Chen, Xihan & Li, Zhuohang & Gao, Feng & Chen, Weixing, 2024. "Dual-function flapping hydrofoil: Energy capture and propulsion in ocean waves," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    20. Zhang, Yue & Yang, Fuchun & Li, Yuetai & Qiu, Wenlei, 2021. "Design and numerical investigation of a multi-directional energy-harvesting device for UUVs," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:5:p:1277-:d:1605948. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.