Energy harvesting of gas pipeline vibration

Pipelines conveying gas under pressure exhibit turbulence-induced vibrations. The current work is concerned with extracting useful power from pipelines operating well within their stability region. At such regions, the pipe vibrations exist in small magnitudes and are unlikely to cause structural failure, yet can be exploited to provide useful energy for low-power electronic devices. Accordingly, emphasis in the present work is placed on the development of an energy harvesting technique employing the omnipresent and inevitable flow-induced vibrations in gas pipelines. © 2010 SPIE.