Experimental Study on Operation Performance of Two-Body Wave Energy Generator

The two-body oscillating type wave energy converter (WEC) is a hot research topic at present. A two-body device with damping disc was taken as the test model in this paper. The two bodies were connected by a hydraulic piston cylinder to realize the relative motion energy conversion. Physical experiments were carried out in a wave-making flume to study the operation performance. The effects of wave elements and load on the hydrodynamic characteristics and capture width ratio (CWR) of the model were analysed respectively. The results showed that wave frequency and external load were the main factors affecting the motion response and energy conversion of the device. With the increase of wave frequency and external load, the response amplitude operator (RAO) and the capture width ratio both increase first and then decrease. Wave height has little effect on system characteristics. There exists a best-matching wave period condition, and the optimal motion response and energy conversion are obtained.

Evaluation of the Performance of an Integrated WEC Type of Breakwater System

A new type of coastal structure is proposed to reduce construction-cost and construction-space by integrating wave energy converters (WECs) into breakwater system. To develop this type of system to be more stable and effective, this paper focuses on investigating and improving an existing concept of integrated WEC type of breakwater system using a numerical method based on OpenFOAM®. Validation of the numerical setup is conducted by comparing the numerical predictions with relevant experimental data collected in a wave tank at Dalian University of Technology. The integrated WEC type of breakwater system considered in this paper is a pile-restrained WEC-type dual-floating breakwater system. The two floating breakwaters in this system are constrained to heave motion independently and work as a heaving-oscillating buoy type of WECs driven by a linear power take-off damping system (PTO system). Two parameters including wave transmission factor and capture width ratio (which is defined as the ratio of absorbed wave power to the incident wave power in the device width) are studied and discussed in the paper. The range of effective frequencies (range with wave transmission factor KT < 0.5 and capture width ratio CWR > 0.2) is obtained to evaluate the performance of this system with regard to both breakwater and WEC. These results indicate that damping coefficient of PTO system and gap width between two floating bodies influence wave transmission factor and capture width ratio, and the range of effective frequencies can be improved by the appropriate damping coefficient and gap width.

Energy Efficiency Analysis of Multi-Type Floating Bodies for a Novel Heaving Point Absorber with Application to Low-Power Unmanned Ocean Device

Long-term energy supplies hinder the application of the low-power unmanned ocean devices to the deep sea. Ocean wave energy is a renewable resource with amount stores of enormous and high density. The wave energy converter (WEC) could be miniaturized so that it can be integrated into the devices to make up the power module. In this paper, a small novel heaving point absorber of energy supply for low-power unmanned ocean devices is developed based on the counter-rotating self-adaptive mechanism. The floating body as an important part of the heaving point absorber, the geometric parameters is optimized to increase the efficiency of power production. Through constructing the constitutive relation between the geometric parameters, the wave force, the motion displacement, the motion velocity, and the capture width ratio of the floating body, the energy efficiency characteristics of the multi-type floating bodies are calculated, and the optimal shape is selected. On the other hand, in the calculation process of the wave force, the Froude-Krylov method is an effective method to accurately calculate the wave excitation force. Meanwhile, nonlinear static and dynamic Froude-Krylov force effectively overcomes the inaccuracy of the linear models and reduces the time consumed to simulate. Finally, the wave force, heaving velocity, heaving displacement, and capture width ratio of the three floating bodies are compared and analyzed, and the results show that the cylindrical floater that is vertically placed on the wave surface is more suitable for the novel heaving wave energy point absorber.

Wave Energy Harnessing in Shallow Water through Oscillating Bodies

This paper deals with wave energy conversion in shallow water, analyzing the performance of two different oscillating-body systems. The first one is a heaving float, which is a system known in the literature. The second one is obtained by coupling the heaving float with a surging paddle. In order to check the different behaviors of the multibody system and the single-body heaving float, physical models of the two systems have been tested in a wave flume, by placing them at various water depths along a sloping bottom. The systems have been tested with monochromatic waves. For each water depth, several tests have been performed varying the geometrical and mechanical parameters of the two systems, in order to find their best configurations. It has been found that the multibody system is more energetic when the float and the paddle are close to each other. Capture width ratio has been found to significantly vary with water depth for both systems: in particular, capture width ratio of the heaving float (also within the multibody system) increases as water depth increases, while capture width ratio of the paddle (within the multibody system) increases as water depth decreases. At the end, the capture width ratio of the multibody system is almost always higher than that of the heaving float, and it increases as water depth increases on average; however, the multibody advantage over single body is significant for water depth less than the characteristic dimension of the system, and decreases as water depth increases.

Experimental investigation on hydrodynamic performance of a dual pontoon–power take-off type wave energy converter integrated with floating breakwaters

As an extension of the single pontoon wave energy converter–type breakwater, a wave energy converter–type breakwater equipped with dual pontoon–power take-off system is proposed to broaden the effective frequency range (for transmission coefficient KT < 0.5 and capture width ratio η > 20%). The wave energy converter–type breakwater with dual pontoon–power take-off system consists of a pair of heave-type pontoons and power take-off systems for which the power take-off system is installed to harvest the kinetic energy of heave motion of the pontoon. In this paper, we experimentally confirm the advantage of the wave energy converter–type breakwater with dual pontoon–power take-off system over the one with a single pontoon–power take-off system. Both wave energy converter–type breakwater with dual pontoon–power take-off system and that with single pontoon–power take-off system are tested in regular waves. A (electronic) current controller–magnetic powder brake system is used to simulate the power take-off system. The characteristics of power take-off system are investigated and results showed that the power take-off system can simulate the (approximate) Coulomb damping force well. Experimental results reveal that the wave energy converter–type breakwater with dual pontoon–power take-off system broadens the effective frequency range compared with the single pontoon–power take-off system with the same pontoon volume (i.e. the displacement of the pontoon). Specifically, the transmission coefficient of the system is smaller while the system in relative longer waves. Furthermore, the capture width ratio of system can be improved.

Theory of the synchronous motion of an array of floating flap gates oscillating wave surge converter

We consider a finite array of floating flap gates oscillating wave surge converter (OWSC) in water of constant depth. The diffraction and radiation potentials are solved in terms of elliptical coordinates and Mathieu functions. Generated power and capture width ratio of a single gate excited by incoming waves are given in terms of the radiated wave amplitude in the far field. Similar to the case of axially symmetric absorbers, the maximum power extracted is shown to be directly proportional to the incident wave characteristics: energy flux, angle of incidence and wavelength. Accordingly, the capture width ratio is directly proportional to the wavelength, thus giving a design estimate of the maximum efficiency of the system. We then compare the array and the single gate in terms of energy production. For regular waves, we show that excitation of the out-of-phase natural modes of the array increases the power output, while in the case of random seas we show that the array and the single gate achieve the same efficiency.

Analysis of the Geometric Tunability of a WEC From a Worldwide Perspective

Nowadays the goal of WEC developers is to reduce the price of the harvested energy for its own technology, via either decreasing the cost of WECs or increasing the power production. In order to increase the power production of a particular WEC, usually the WECs are tuned with the wave climate at the target location. However, in order to achieve the maximum profitability, the WECs must be able to be deployed in a bunch of locations with different wave climates. Therefore WECs must be flexible to be adapted to different kind of locations. The matchability of a device could be achieved via the PTO control or changing the geometric characteristics of a particular device. In this study, an analysis about how the geometric tuning of a generic wave energy converter affects to different climate scenarios is performed. Firstly, a generic wave energy converter is assumed to be formed by an array of floating cylinders that absorb in heave. Three options are proposed in the present study, a cylinder with its natural period on 4 s, typical of enclosed seas, another option with a natural period of 8 s (mean Atlantic swell) and an option that is tunable as a function of the location in order to evaluate the influence of tuning on the power performance. The power matrix is computed with a frequency domain model and then, the converters are evaluated worldwide, taking the met-ocean data from a global reanalysis database (GOW) from Reguero et al (2012). The results are presented in terms of two main indicators, on one hand, the capture width ratio, that evaluates the efficiency of the converter on each location, and the kW/Ton parameter that evaluates the efficiency of the converter on “economic” terms. Finally, tuning a converter for each location of deployment resulted positive in terms of capture width ratio, however regarding the kW/Ton indicator tuning resulted useless due to the heaviness of the structures needed to tune the converter with high peak periods. The number of suitable locations (in terms of an acceptable kW/Ton indicator) was higher as the mass of the structure is reduced, regardless of the natural period of the converter, thanks to a good performance of high natural periods converters.