Investigations into Balancing Peak-to-Average Power Ratio and Mean Power Extraction for a Two-Body Point-Absorber Wave Energy Converter

The power harnessed by wave energy converters (WECs) in oceans is highly variable and, therefore, has a high peak-to-average power (PTAP) ratio. To minimize the cost of a WEC power take off (PTO) system, it is desirable to reduce the PTAP ratio while maximizing the mean power extracted by WECs. The important issue of how PTAP ratio reduction measures (such as adding an inertia element) can affect the mean power extracted in a reference model has not been thoroughly addressed in the literature. To investigate this correlation, this study focuses on the integration of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Reference Model 3, a two-body point absorber, with a slider-crank WEC for linear-to-rotational conversion. In the first phase of this study, a full-scale numerical model was developed that predicts how PTO system parameters, along with an advanced control algorithm, can potentially affect the proposed WEC’s PTAP ratio as well as the mean power extracted. In the second phase, an appropriate scaled-down model was developed, and extracted power results were successfully validated against the full-scale model. Finally, numerical and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations based on the scaled-down model were designed and conducted to optimize or make trade-offs between the operational performance and PTAP ratio. The initial results with numerical and HIL simulations reveal that gear ratio, crank radius, and generator parameters substantially impact the PTAP ratio and mean power extracted.

Numerical evaluation of a two-body point absorber wave energy converter with a tuned inerter

To increase the amount of energy captured from a vibrating buoy in the ocean with a simple mechanism, this paper proposes a two-body point absorber wave energy converter (WEC) with a tuned inerter. The tuned inerter mechanism consists of a spring, a linear damping element, and a component called inerter. This mechanism was originally proposed in the field of civil engineering as a structural control device which can absorb energy from vibrating structures effectively by taking advantage of the resonance effect of the inerter part. In addition to this mechanism where a generator is used as the linear damping element, the current of the generator for the power take-off system is controlled based on the algorithms proposed in literature to achieve further improvement of the power generation capability. In this research, a detailed analytical model of the proposed WEC is introduced and developed. Then the power generation performances of full scale WEC models are assessed through numerical simulation studies using WAMIT software and it is shown that the current controlled WEC with the proposed mechanism achieves 88% increase compared to the conventional one for the JONSWAP spectrum with 6 s peak period and 1 m significant wave height