Flexible and elastic mechanisms for extracting power from a moving fluid.
Sheet-like material is deformed during fabrication through an applied
force so as to create undulations in said material, whose stresses are
maintained through restraining components, thereby maintaining the
occurrence of said deformations in the material. When placed in moving
fluid, the resulting pressure differentials cause the positions of the
undulations within the material to travel along said material in the same
direction as the moving fluid. Power is extracted in one of two principle
ways. The first is via a mechanical coupling of the sheet-like material
to a rotating mechanism, which turns an electro-magnetic dynamo or other
output device. The second is via the utilization of a flexible material
which exhibits an electrical response to mechanical strain, whereby the
strains caused by the travel of undulations along the material create an
electrical current which is extracted via two or more electrodes.