Energy Flux Method for Wave Energy Converters

Energy Flux Method for Wave Energy Converters

Blog Article

Hydrodynamic tools reveal information as to the behaviour of a device in the presence of waves but provide little information on how to improve or optimise the device.With no recent work on the transfer of power (energy flux) from a wave field through the body surface of a wave energy converter (WEC), we introduce the energy flux method to map the flow of power.The method is used to develop an open-source tool to visualise the energy flux density on a WEC body surface.

This energy flux surface can also be used to compute the read more total power capture by integrating over the surface.We apply the tool to three WEC classes: a heaving cylinder, a twin-hulled hinged barge, and pitching surge devices.Using the flux surfaces, we investigate power efficiency in terms of power absorbed to power radiated.

We visualise the hydrodynamic consequence of sub-optimal damping.Then, for two pitching surge click here devices with similar resonant peaks, we reveal why one device has a reduced power performance in a wave spectrum compared to the other.The results show the effectiveness of the energy flux method to predict power capture compared to motion-based methods and highlight the importance of assessing the flux of energy in WECs subjected to different damping strategies.

Importantly, the tool can be adopted for a wide range of applications, from geometry optimisation and hydrodynamic efficiency assessment to structural design.