CFD simulation of a Passively Controlled Point Absorber Wave Energy Converter
Paper in proceeding, 2018

Recently CorPower Ocean AB presented laboratory tests of a point absorber wave energy converter equipped with a novel technique for passive phase con- trol. The technique, known as WaveSpring, widens the response bandwidth by a negative spring arrangement, and in the tank experiment an up to three-fold in- crease in delivered power as compared to pure linear damping was observed. As previously reported, for point absorbers close to resonance the use of standard radiation-diffraction models can become unreliable while CFD simulations ac- curately captures the nonlinear wave height dependent response. Thus, in the present study a module representing the WaveSpring technology was implanted in the OpenFOAM framework and CFD simulations of the buoy were per- formed both with and without the WaveSpring module. Good agreement be- tween simulated and experimental results was observed, and the WaveSpring behavior was well captured in the numerical simulation. The CFD model can be used for further tuning of the WaveSpring/buoy design as well as providing val- idation data for radiation-diffraction models.

Point Absorber

Wave Energy

CFD

Nonlinear response

Passive control

Author

Minghao Wu

Aalborg University

Weizhi Wang

Aalborg University

Johannes Palm

Aalborg University

Claes Eskilsson

Aalborg University

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Marine Technology

Trends and Challenges in Maritime Energy Management

499-511

MARENER 2017
Malmö, Sweden,

Including Nonlinear and Viscous Effects when Modelling the Performance of Wave Energy Converters

Swedish Energy Agency (40428-1), 2015-08-01 -- 2017-02-28.

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Areas of Advance

Energy

Infrastructure

C3SE (Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering)

Subject Categories

Marine Engineering

DOI

10.1007/978-3-319-74576-3_34

More information

Latest update

6/15/2022