Energy Harvesting from Landing and Taxiing of Commercial Aircraft

We demonstrate a virtual proof-of-concept design and experiment for energy harvesting enabling economic and environment-friendly aircraft by recycling forces for power conversion. The harvesting uses piezoelectric materials for extracting energy from the impact at the touchdown during the landing of an aircraft and direct current (DC) generators powered by the rotational motion of the aircraft wheels during taxiing. The design begins with a multidomain model comprising multibody dynamics, mathematical descriptions, abstract behavioral blocks, and programmed code. Piezoelectric harvesting explores six types of materials consisting of ring and disk pad geometries. Both geometries are typical configurations in suspension systems. Recent advances have shown the potential of getting higher voltage out of new materials properties. Our objective is to determine the useful impact force during a touchdown on the pads and a pad type that maximizes the power transfer. The evaluation shows that the American Piezo Ceramics (APC) 860/porous material in the ring shape gives the maximum power. For constant power generation during taxiing, we analyze four configurations of the DC generator. The DC generation offers a rich system-level design trade-off in evaluating a steady output voltage as the generator spins cyclically and changes flux in the coil during the contact between the wheel and the runway. The methodology for harvesting energy through touchdown and taxiing is agile to experiment with loads and their release heights for evaluating other piezoelectric materials for their potential for generating power as well as for the parametric tradespace analysis in generator performance.