Concept and Numerical Analysis of a Vehicle-Motion Energy Harvesting Turbine Integrated with a Noise Barrier

The paper presents the concept of a turbine-based energy harvester designed to recover kinetic energy from airflow generated by a moving vehicle and integrated with a roadside acoustic barrier. The proposed solutions employ a vertical-axis aerodynamic turbine positioned within a cavity in the barrier and various airflow guiding structures intended to enhance the efficiency of energy transfer from turbulent airflow to the turbine rotor. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed concepts, two-dimensional CFD simulations were conducted in the ANSYS Fluent environment using the k–ε turbulence model. Three airflow deflector geometries and one reference configuration without a deflector were analyzed. The performance of each configuration was assessed based on the maximum instantaneous power and the average power generated by the turbine during a single vehicle pass-by event. The results demonstrated a significant influence of the airflow guide geometry on system performance. The most effective configuration achieved an average power output of approximately 7 W during a single vehicle pass-by event, whereas the configuration without an airflow guide exhibited significantly lower energy recovery efficiency. The obtained findings confirm the potential of the analyzed technology as a power source for autonomous low-power roadside infrastructure systems.