Fully submerged sphere and cylinder point absorber (PA), wave energy converters (WECs) are analyzed numerically based on linearized potential flow theory. A boundary element method (BEM) (a radiation–diffraction panel program for wave-body interactions) is used for the basic wave-structure interaction analysis. In the present numerical model, the viscous damping is modeled by an equivalent linearized damping which extracts the same amount of wave energy over one cycle as the conventional quadratic damping term. The wave power capture width in each case is predicted. Comparisons are also made between the sphere and cylinder PAs which have identical geometrical scales and submerged depths. The results show that: (i) viscous damping has a greater influence on wave power performance of the cylinder PA than that of the sphere PA; (ii) the increasing wave height reduces wave power performance of PAs; (iii) the cylinder PA has a better wave power performance compared to the sphere PA in larger wave height scenarios, which indicates that fully submerged cylinder PA is a preferable prototype of WEC.
Interconnection strategies of point absorber type wave energy converters and rectifier units
